Alistair Kerr Photography

A Late Happy New Year to you...

2012-01-23T21:38:00.001Z

So I know I've been pretty quiet on the blog front since Christmas, it's mostly because I got very sick Christmas day and didn't really get right again for a week. Plus my Uncle died of leukaemia on Boxing Day, which didn't help. I managed to fit in some work between New Year and the 11th January, then it was down to Swindon to see my Uncle off in style.

This week I've been tiding up a few lose ends, I've got five more products to shoot this week, outside, in the dark, it's high-viz clothing, and then I'm about done for the month. Thursday I'm dropping off a heap of products to one client, as well as a trip to the hospital (hearing test) and it's my birthday, wahoo!

Next month I've got shoots for Volvo Coach and Bus, more radiators, some showroom shots, and an incentives product catalogue to start. So all in all a nice start to February...

Christmas Eve in the photoshop...

2011-12-24T15:59:00.001Z

It's Christmas Eve and I'm still sat here working on the Mac to make sure a client have there work when they start back after the holidays, also have a shoot on next Wednesday to finish up another job. The new year has already got a few bookings in, location work and product shots.

So Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year to one and all.

Bowens Pro Heads, fire and fail...

2011-12-15T14:53:00.003Z

I've used Bowens flash equipment since I set up as a freelance photographer just over 9 years ago, I'd used it before that in a couple of studios I'd worked for, so naturally when I was looking to upgrade some older kit about 18 months ago it was Bowens that I went for. The Pro heads, with their fast flash duration, were bought and I put some of my older flash equipment on e-bay. I'm beginning to wish I'd kept those older heads, as over the course of a couple of weeks I've had one 500 Pro head stop working and a 750 Pro head nearly go on fire, the smoke was very black and extremely unpleasant. So today Simon from Bob Rigby Photographic came over and picked up the offending equipment to send back to Bowens, luckily they have a two year warranty, he did point out that the Bowens range is now made in China, which actually came as a bit of a shock. Chinese flash equipment hasn't got the best of reputations for quality or reliability.

So now I wait till January to see what has gone wrong with my kit, I've still got 3 working heads and I can borrow up to 4 more at a push, but I really don't like the situation. 18 months use for this sort of equipment isn't that much, the heads I e-bayed were 5 years old and are still going strong at a photography business in Dorset.

Horse and flash...

2011-12-04T17:46:00.054Z

This Saturday evening I headed out to the Foxes Riding School in Ledsham on the Wirral, to meet up with Cress and his rider Angela. The mission was to get some photographs of them, full portrait, head shots of Cress and action shots.

This isn't the first time I've photographed horses, but it was going to be the first using studio flash, I had no idea how the horse would react with flashes popping off all around him.

So whilst Angela schooled him on a lead rope, I set up a Canon speedlight 550EX on a tripod, aiming it at the wall to start with. I fired it, nothing, no reaction from Cress, so moving the 550 around so it was pointing towards Cress, I fired it again, still no adverse reaction, a few more flashes and still no reaction I was good to go.

I unload and set up my Bowens Gemini Pro heads, plugged them into a couple of Bowens Travelpaks and set to work. The heads have a very fast flash duration, even though I was running almost at full power, so there's very little in the way of movement blur in the images, the strip-lights illuminating the indoor arena had no effect on the images at all.

Next time though we will definitely be shooting outdoors in daylight, though I might well use the Bowens heads again to add some dramatic effect. I must thank Angela and especially Cress for the opportunity to get these images, and to Cress again for not taking exception to my equipment or myself. I think you'd agree he's a beautiful horse.

I'm torn between Instagram and Hipstamatic...

2011-11-26T21:16:00.000Z

I have both apps on my iPhone, as I'm sure many do, but I'm torn between which one to use at times. Still here's a very small selection of images take with the two apps this year. Some have been enhanced using the Photogene app or PS Express app, the rams head was 'enhanced' using the latter app, it all went very Pete Tong, but I like it.

You don't always need lots of room...

2011-11-12T22:38:00.001Z

... to shoot a job, I used my eldest sons bedroom for a simple product shot, it was for a couple of small products. My home office is in the next room, I actually shot the job from my MacPro with the camera tethered using Aperture, proving you don't always need a cavernous studio, at least if you're shooting small products, now if it was a car...

An avalanche of pdn's...

2011-11-10T15:19:00.000Z

Well on Monday I finally got the November issue of pdn, quiet late, like 18 days late. Today woe and behold the December issue hit the mat, almost an avalanche of pdn's, very unusual. Well now I've finished my product shots today I think a pot of coffee and my reading glasses are in order.

Another camera announcement from Canon...

2011-11-10T09:49:00.000Z

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/gear/Canons-Second-Big-A-3979.shtml

Just checked out pdn's website and saw this (above), another announcement from Canon, another full-frame DSLR but with 4K movies capability for next year! Will it be a studio camera replacement for the 1Ds MkIII, or the 5D MkII. Well! Will it?

So in January it's my 47th Birthday...

2011-11-04T10:23:00.000Z

... and I have a project in mind to go with it. My initials are AK, I'll be 47, so AK@FortySeven, it'll be a series of portraits of friends, family, acquaintances with the above toy AK47, doesn't it look fine in blue and white? You can't sell toy guns that are coloured like real guns any more, the last thing you need is policemen shooting kids wheedling toy guns, you'd never hear the end of it! So I'm hoping to get started on the project soon, I've already got a blog page set up, the images will appear there as I start to make headway with the project. I'm hoping it'll be a bit of fun and it'll produce some interesting images.

They cannot be serious...

2011-11-03T13:25:00.000Z

I'm really hoping that this is pure speculation, one of those rumours like the iPhone5 will be delivered by Santa Claus at Christmas, or other such silliness. The big desktop units can be seen everywhere, design studios, photography studios, video/TV production companies and a myriad of others. I've been using desktop macs for almost as long as I've used computers, reason, fast, expandable and for the most part damned reliable. I've got nothing against iMacs, brilliant units and thanks to the lack of suitable processors for the MacPro upgrade, they're very fast, if not as fast as most of the current MacPro lineup. I've just always seen PowerMacs and now the MacPro as the backbone of Apples computer products, fingers are crossed that they'll continue to be.

Today I've been mostly exploring radiators...

2011-10-26T21:57:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it helps to look at things from different angles.

Further to photographing CCTV cameras...

2011-10-25T11:51:00.000+01:00

I got a request from my client almost as soon as he'd received the original set of CCTV images, could I superimpose a clock face over one of the images.

Yes, yes I can, so I was back out into town, there's a clock sticking out of the local town hall that I knew should fit the bill. I didn't have the time to wait around for noon to roll around so over the course of ten minutes or so I rattled off a number of shots. The clock hands were cut and pasted into position in photoshop and a bit of shadow created to make the hands look right. The white of the clock face was dropped out and the whole image was dropped over the CCTV camera shot. The image is to illustrate that a lot of those CCTV cameras that are monitoring you everyday aren't set up for the clocks going back at the weekend. That is all...

This morning I was out nice and early...

2011-10-22T22:57:00.000+01:00

... to get some images of CCTV cameras, it's for an article in a security industry magazine. So armed with my trusty Canon and the 70-200mm lens I ventured forth into the chill of a late October day.

The only thing that was worrying me was if I'd get my collar felt by the police, what with the way some forces have interpreted the anti-terrorist laws.

I shouldn't have worried I only saw one police vehicle during the quest for shots of CCTV cameras and the occupant didn't even give me a second glance.

It was interesting to see just how many CCTV camera my local town has, a good deal of shops have them, but the town is pretty much covered with cameras that are obviously owned and run by the council.

I doubt it's so much a case of Big Brother is watching you, more some poor sod that has to watch the monitors all day bored out of his skull. Lets hope they let him have the radio on at least.

Do I care about the new Canon 1D X...

2011-10-18T14:21:00.000+01:00

... no not really. I'm more concerned with getting the next job in, shot and off to the client. New kit can wait till we see if the great world consumer lead economy will keep going or falter and die.

You might be able to tell I got out of bed the wrong side this morning. I'm sure it will be a great piece of kit, but it doesn't tick all the boxes I had for my next dream camera, I'll see what the 5DMkIII brings to the table in 6-8 months time...

Apple Macs I've owned...

2011-10-12T22:02:00.001+01:00

Having been delving into the innards of my MacPro a great deal recently I was pleasantly surprised to find some images of some of my previous Macs in an old folder in my archive. Starting with a Beige G3, not my first Mac, that was an iMac Blueberry 450 Mhz, but I can't find any photos of that, and I'm not prepared to go up into the attic to find and take a snap of it.

Next up a G3 Blue and White, I loved this baby and it served me very well over the years, it was stuffed full of hard drives and eventually became my server unit, it's on a shelf in the garage at the moment, devoid of hard drives but I just can't get rid of it. Purchased a G4 iMac next, great machine, stylish great design, bit of a pain to upgrade the hard drive, but I managed, once it was out of warranty of course. It's still working, though my wife's nephews got it now.

I've got two 21" Studio Displays, both still work but they're huge and take up so much desk space that one is squatting in a corner of the office floor, the other is in the garage. Free to a good home, though you'd have to come and pick them up. The E-Mac sits in the office on the spare desk, it's really just for my kids to play with. No pics of the G4 PowerMac 800 Mhz, I know I had some but can't find them anywhere, the mac ended up on e-bay and is probably giving someone excellent service to this day.

My knackered old iBook has long since given up the ghost, the screen went black one day and that was that, it still had it's uses, security shot above. The MacBook is still with us and has it's fare share of work thrust upon it.

Which brings me to my present set up, dual screens, stacks of hard drives but you've seen all this before, I'll be back to blogging about photography again soon. I'm converting an old 5x4 Toyo view camera to take my Canon and will hopefully be doing some interest shots with that soon. Pics of the engineering bit coming soon, I hope.

Kodak, is the writing on the wall...

2011-10-03T10:52:00.000+01:00

... I've read a lot of reports this weekend about the state of the film giant, none of it makes good reading. The vultures already seem to be circling, waiting to feast on the estimate $2 billion worth of digital related patents that the yellow film box company has tucked away. Only the threat of being dragged through the courts by Kodaks creditors seems to be stopping a feeding frenzy.

Back in the day when I ran a E-6 pro lab we sold and processed a great deal of Kodak film, though when Fuji up'd their game and introduced Velvia, Provia and eventually Astia, we saw a decline in Kodak usage among our professional clients. Both sales of and processing of Kodak film took a big hit, probably a 70/25% split in Fuji's favour, with Agfa and Konica making up the remaining 5%. At the time the Kodak film catalogue was huge, there were eight different 100 ASA transparency emulsions, which was ridiculous, but Kodak kept coming out with more, whilst never deleting any of the older emulsions as they still sold.

But it has been digital that has really hit the company, though it was an early pioneer of digital photography it never monopolised it's lead, it's own shareholders holding it back at the time, insisting that Kodak was a film producing company, very shortsighted in hindsight. Now a company that used to be worth £31 Billion is now worth £600 million, with it's shares dropping by the hour. Now at 70 cents a share with trading suspended could this be the end for Kodak? Their patent portfolio seems to be all that anyone is interested in, so will the film production go the way of Kodachrome. It's all very sad, seeing as there has been a bit of a renaissance in photographic film use, driven by plastic toy cameras and people rediscovering the discipline required shooting film.

Below are a couple of links to a few of the articles I've read today. It really doesn't look good though.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ /2011/10/02/what-i-saw-as-kodak-crumbled/

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2011/10/02/kodak_on_the_verge_of_death

So what was the wall for...

2011-09-30T20:44:00.002+01:00

... it was for these, exterior lights, packaging shots. The shots with the lights on proved a little troublesome, the large security light created a rainbow glare as the LED bulbs are very bright, so I had to do a two part comp shooting the light off with flash and then with the LED light on, a quick bit of work in layers in Photoshop sorted it.

So the images are now winging their way through the wonder of ftp to Hong Kong to be dropped onto the packaging, soon to be packed with lights that will be heading to these shores very soon.

A quick shot of the old Canon 1Ds MkII sat atop of my Manfrotto ball head, the 075 tripod legs are out of shot, as is the 70-200mm f4 L series lens attached to the camera. During the shoot the camera was tethered to the laptop and the images captured in Aperture. The images went through Photoshop for the raw conversions on the MacPro.

My trusty Hall theatre weights keeping everything held down nicely, screwdrivers were for removing the plugs to get each lights lead through the hole in the wall, before putting the plugs back on, time, it all takes time...

The plastic walling does look pretty convincing, I've used it for a great deal of photography shot applications. Wish I could get some more but the old supplier has disappeared now, bother!

Set building...

2011-09-28T20:13:00.001+01:00

... today, had to knock up a false wall. The wall is made of 12mm mdf 900mm x 900mm with a base and a web piece to keep everything straight. All screwed together, cos that's the way it should be done, also means that with a quick play with the electric screwdriver it can all be broken down and stored easily.

The wall effect is made from a plastic sheet that originally came from Pinewood Studios. It's brilliant stuff for building sets with, with the use of a vacuum forming machine they can reproduce brick walls, stone walls, wooden panels, the list goes on. It's used a lot in film set building, this piece was an off-cut I got from a studio I used to work for, well they were chucking the stuff out, so I chucked it into the boot of my car. You never know when it might come in handy, like today, for a shoot tomorrow.

Notice the black weight, I've got three of them, by Hall's of London, theatrical weights, bloody heavy, you don't wear sandals when you're carrying these babies about. They're great for keeping stuff where you want it to stay, I'll be using them tomorrow as I've got lighting units going on the wall, they're prototypes, so the last thing I need is the wall doing a Humpty Dumpty, as my insurance company might not like it.

Finally, finally finished...

2011-09-27T13:47:00.001+01:00

... installing the drive in the MacPro, the other drive is now wrapped an packed and marked 'Clone HD' it'll be offsite later today. I've also popped in a 500GB Scratch Drive, so now I'm happy with the old girl again. She's back to her old self and running great. Hoping it's going to be a while before I have to muck about inside the big brushed silver box, though it could always do with a tad more memory, say another 4GB...

I've read loads of articles recently about the idea of cloning start-up drives for piece of mind, to be honest for the small extra expense of another hard drive it does make a whole heap of sense. Right now to get back to the real job, so it's off with the IT hat and on with the Photographers hat, I've got product shots to get done and deadlines to meet...

Just popped into...

2011-09-21T14:01:00.001+01:00

... Chester for a meeting, police everywhere, didn't pay it to much attention really, went to meeting. After a very successful meeting, picked up a days work, I was feeling a bit peckish so wondered off in the direction of a sandwich shop, stone me, there's the Princes Royal (Ann) in front of a regiment of Marines being presented with their colours right outside the town hall. Still with all the crowds watching the spectacle the sandwich shop was virtually empty, so I got a very nice Italian chicken and sun-dried tomato baguette in double quick time. I've seen countless Royal parades in my time living in London, a good sandwich has more draw to me, when I'm hungry. Now must stop waffling and get on with some invoicing and quotes.

Finally changed the hard drives...

2011-09-15T20:42:00.004+01:00

... over on the MacPro, I had to delay the change over because I had a lot of work come in, so can't complain about that. It's really easy to replace a hard drive, the time consuming bit is loading up all the software. I can recommend doing a swap during the day, starting it late evening turned the whole process into a very late night/early morning chore.

I have to say the Samsung hard drives are whisper quiet, I'm really glad I opted for them, it also makes me wonder if the old drive was on the start of it's way to failure, it was a little clicky...

The MacPro today has been starting faster and whipping through the work, so I'm really pleased I made the decision to rip out the old drive. Now back to work, I've got 26 cut-outs to do and they wont do themselves.

My Mac Pro has...

2011-09-08T10:46:00.002+01:00

... reached the tender age of 3, the Applecare has now expired (which has been well worth the money as my graphics card took a nose dive 18 months ago) and so I was thinking, replace or keep. Does it still speed along helping me get my work out on time, yes. Has it reached the end of it useful life, no, no it has not. So it's a keeper, though it needs opening up again and treating to a good dusting with some canned air, it's amazing just how much dust they will collect if you let them. I'm also going to replace the main hard drive, in fact I'll be doing two drives, keeping one as a spare, just in case. So that will mean a little down time this week,

I choose Samsung 500GB F3 SATAII Hard drives which I ordered from Micros Direct who got them to me very quickly, a company who have very good service and brilliant communications and can pin delivery down to a particular hour of the given delivery day, which is a god send.

I've had a hard drive start to produce the 'clicking sound of hard drive death' before in my old iMac (the old angle-poise screen G4) and that was a bit of a wake up call of the fragility of hard drives.

The spare drive for the MacPro I'll be keeping with my archive drives at a secure off site location (yeah if you've been reading earlier posts you'll know that location is my Dads house) because you never know, fire, flood, theft, earthquakes, werewolves, vampires...

Samsung-500GB-F3-hard-drive-SATA-II-300-16MB-cache-7200rpm-oem

Oh, so you want me to waiver my copyright...

2011-08-29T08:43:00.001+01:00

I got this e-mail yesterday afternoon, I started to read it and thought yeah okay that sounds okay. Until I got to the last request... e-mail below...

Hi. I was just writing to enquire about a shoot for my 15 year old daughter. I was just wondering how much a portfolio shoot, with the following requirements would cost?

Image Criteria:

Each image must be in portrait, JPEG format, a minimum of 2.5MB and have dimensions of

no less than 2000 x 3000px.

Images must be less than three months old and be a true, current likeness.

Images must be to a professional standard, taken in studio using appropriate equipment and

lighting facilities including soft box, gels and reflectors.

A minimum of 50 images must be provided

Images must include a range of headshots, ¾ shots, and full-length shots.

Images must be taken in a range of colour, monochrome and sepia tones.

Images must feature a minimum of three outfit changes and utilise a range of accessories

and/or props.

Images must be in original format – no air brushed images will be considered.

Images must be accompanied with a signed and dated letter from the original Photographer,

or Photographic Studio where they were taken, wavering copyright in regard to all media in

perpetuity.

Many Thanks. T C.

The e-mail I sent back was short, concise and to the point "I don't 'Waiver' copyright. Ever!" I did suggest that she could do a copyright buyout, expensive. The image criteria that TC lists is obviously copy and pasted from whatever competition she is entering her daughter into, you'd have thought that if this competition wants professionals to produce the images they'd have had a bit more sense than to demand giving up copyright. Right I can now get back to enjoying the wet Bank Holiday Monday.

Toy Bike...

2011-08-11T21:58:00.002+01:00

I promised my eldest boy I'd photograph his toy chopper motorcycle, when you make a promise to your kid or kids you've got to come through with the goods. What kind of a Dad would you be if you didn't? I really shouldn't have used a purple gel, should of just had a little bit of white light creeping in, but someone wanted purple... It was shot with two lights, one for the background and one overhead with a medium softbox. the rest of the lighting is done using silver-foil cards, you can get them at most craft stores and they're great for popping a bit of fill into small products, or toys.

Amendment to brief: 14/08/2011

So now he wants it on a black background, kids! The worse client you could ever have, they change their minds faster than a swift changes direction.

Tweet... Tweet...

2011-08-11T09:50:00.000+01:00

I suppose it had to happen eventually, I'm on Twitter now, you can follow me by pressing the convenient button on the right of the blog, above the e-mail link and that Facebook widget. I'm on Google+ now so if you want an invite just drop me an e-mail.

Cha..cha..cha..cha..changes...

2011-07-27T13:27:00.003+01:00

Just fiddling with the home page and portfolio page 6 on the website, must keep updating images, more to follow.

Went racing this weekend...

2011-07-25T23:13:00.083+01:00

... to the British National Championships, a Downhill Mountain Bike event held this year just outside Llangollen, North Wales. I've not been to a Nationals event for about 8 or 9 years, I use to cover the events for either Dirt or MBUK magazines, or both. I have to thank Dave Franciosy and Si Paton, the organisers, for letting me have media accreditation for the event.

I've photographed both Dave and Si at numerous events in the past, Si had helped me out as test rider on a bike test article for Dirt magazine once. It was great to see the event they had laid on, the events of old were usually very low key, all the spectators were usually friends and family of the racers, but with a good understanding of media exploitation and the need for good sponsorship the guys have turned the competition into a major event for all the family.

As well as two ice cream vans (it was a hot day), good food vendors and a beer tent, there was a pump track with bikes for kids to play on, team vehicles with competition bikes on display in the pit area, various companies selling bike and leisure wear. To be honest it wasn't far different to an International competition.

The track was insanely steep, the section at the top in the woods was so steep they'd had to install ropes for spectators to use to pull themselves up to watch the action. Plenty of people took advantage of the ropes, there were almost 3000 people watching the racing either along the course or down in the finish area.

Some were more sensibly dressed than others, this guy had dressed up for a drunken bet, he must have had the soggiest pants on the hill.

I have to say I really enjoyed being there and snapping all day long, I got a chance to meet up with old friends and hopefully made some new ones, the racing was incredible, it was great to watch current World Champion Tracy Moseley and former World Champion Steve Peat racing, it took me back.

When the boys bring the event back to Llangollen I'm pretty sure I'll be head over to watch and I might very well take a camera with me. I might take some body armour too, I got hit in the chest by a rock dislodged when a rider took off from one of the many jumps on the course, it still bloody hurts!

Had to put this up... It's like a Honda ad...

2011-07-13T16:08:00.001+01:00

This is so funny, saw it on Strobist and just had to share. And yes this how we all take portrait images. Not! Now was it Honda or Audi that made ads like this?

Here is the how they did it video.

Why didn't I take my flashguns...

2011-07-11T21:43:00.001+01:00

I spent a long weekend in Wiltshire, though on Sunday I went west to Bath to see an old friend and skateboarding buddy, Howard. I took my Canon 1Ds MkII with me, not sure why, though I didn't take my flashguns. Kicking myself, after a few good cups of coffee (there were biscuits), a lot of reminiscing about the good old days (when our knees and ankles could still take the pounding of a full day of skateboarding), a trip into Bath for lunch at a Tex-Mex restaurant, Howard suggested checking out the local skatepark. There was a session going down with three guys, whose names I will find out, I took a few pictures but had to push the ASA up to 400 in order to get 1/1000s shutter speed to freeze the action. I'm a bit old school when it come to using higher ASA/ISO, most of my action photography was always shot on 100ASA film stock, I see no reason to change, though to be honest the slight increase in noise on these digital shots doesn't detract one bit.

Today was going to be a film day...

2011-06-30T16:01:00.001+01:00

... but the weather so far today has been shocking, torrential rain for nearly an hour, it's only just starting to brighten up now. So instead of going out to play with my Rolleicord and Nikon FM I'm sat in front of the computer working on the images I took during Whit week. We went down to Norfolk, we spent most of our time on the beach or bizarrely riding on miniature railways, we did the Dinosaur Adventure too, which was fun, my youngest lad roared at all the inanimate dinosaurs, we were in stitches. The image below is from Dinosaur Adventure, my son is stood next to me roaring his head off, he wouldn't go any closer, brave enough to roar but wisely at two years old, keeping far enough away in case it is real.

He didn't stand up to the T-Rex though, he's smart for two.

Bang! Slap! Something dropped through...

2011-06-29T09:46:00.000+01:00

... the letterbox. The Fine Art issue of pdn, packed with some nice articles on what fine art photography collectors are buying and what Fine Art photographers are doing to attract buyers. The issue is packed with the usual high standard of images and 'End Frame' this month is a small piece in memoriam to Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros.

Still loving these Hipstamatic images...

2011-06-27T20:55:00.000+01:00

My son won a small inflatable globe the other day at his school summer fate, having busted a lung inflating the damned thing it then got the Hipstamatic treatment. I'm enjoying playing with this app more than any other I've had on my iPhone, I'm also using Photogene just to do a few tweeks on sharpness, saturation etc, I like that to, it's pretty easy to use, though you can put it a bit to far if you have big fingers, but as it will save a new copy each time you can play to your hearts content with plenty of variations.

Hipstamatic, I'm hooked...

2011-06-25T20:27:00.001+01:00

I've heard about, read about it, and now finally I'm in on it, Hipstamatic for the iPhone, it's so retro it hurts, takes me back to the 70's when the quality of neg prints from the chemist were suspect at the best of times.

It use to be a case of spot the colour cast, usually from one print to the next on the same roll, or if you were very unlucky the 'technician' handling your precious negatives might just pre-fog them a bit, or a lot, it just depended how drunk or stoned they were.

Well now you can get that, 70's fucked-up at the lab look with this wonderful little app from iTunes. Okay fucked-up might be a bit strong, the app produces wonderful little artworks that you'd take ages to produce in photoshop from a normal image.

Anyway I'm hooked, since I bought the app at the beginning of the week it's been my camera app of choice on my iPhone, anything and anyone is being snapped, no matter what they're doing!

http://hipstamaticapp.com/

False Polaroid frames, it's just so wrong...

2011-06-23T10:40:00.004+01:00

Trawling through some old mountain bike race images I came across these, they were shot in Portugal at a Maxxis Cup downhill race, these are of Helen Mortimer, a seasoned downhill racer who won the womens competition at the event. But, why, oh why I'd dropped false polaroid frames over them you'd have had to ask me six years ago, because I really haven't got a clue now. It just goes to show that something that you may have thought was 'sooo cool' a few years ago now looks stupid, contrived and really adds nothing to the images. Giant Bikes used the colour shot, they picked and used it before I added the frame, Vans Shoes used a couple of other images of Helen Mortimer for full bleed ads in Dirt magazine and MBUK, again less the Polaroid frames.

So next time I find myself at a loose end with an image up on the Mac screen I will kick myself if I start to think 'hmm that could do with a nice false border'.

It's a Mr. Blue Sky kind of day...

2011-06-20T08:21:00.004+01:00

The sun is out, the sky is blue, ELOs Mr. Blue Sky it blaring out on my iTunes... All is right with the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98P-gu_vMRc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Sometimes things can take longer...

2011-06-16T22:39:00.011+01:00

These images were taken back in 2009, just as the aftermath of the credit crunch had really started to bite, the client produces bespoke furniture, kitchens and green oak buildings, we planned to get six locations done to complete the job but it's taken nearly two years to get it wrapped and packed. My youngest son was just a few months old when I shot these, he's two years and two months now, it's odd to gauge a job by your sons life on the planet but there you go. The discs will be written tomorrow and I should deliver them early next week. Finally.

Okay, so today I got my reading...

2011-06-15T16:12:00.003+01:00

... glasses. Bloody hell what a difference, my long sight is great, thankfully, but now I look at the computer screen with my new personal optical windows everything is sharp again!

In a field, under a tree...

2011-06-08T20:45:00.006+01:00

... in North Norfolk, under a blazing sun at the start of June, slowly rusting, sits a Fordson Major tractor. It waits for it's eventual refurbishment, the rust has taken hold but it's not far enough along to have rendered the metal of this old farm machine to a slow red oxide death. Work will probably start soon to bring this relic back to life, it is a project in waiting. I took a few pictures of it because my brother-in-law use to own one (his wife got it as part of the divorce settlement, she's been trying to sell it ever since) and I thought he'd like to see it.

Right now I'm in the middle of processing 36 product shots, photoshop is busy churning through them and saving the files in a number of folders, got to love 'Actions'...

I'm taking a leaf out of Brad Trent's (Damn Ugly Photography) book, I'm going to tell you what I'm listening to whilst whiling away the time on the computer. At this moment James Vincent McMorrow is singing 'This Old Dark Machine' from the 'Early In The Morning' album, which I find quiet appropriate considering the image above, I heard it on Later with Jools Hollands on the good old BBC and just had to buy the album, damned glad I did...

Valves...

2011-06-07T21:40:00.006+01:00

After a fun packed week away I returned home on Saturday to find a package from a client at my backdoor, the FedEx driver had deemed it to be a safe spot to leave the package, well it was still there so enough of that. Inside were three sets of valves for radiators, all brushed steel and requiring simple shots on a black background. They were shot on a white background and cutout to give the best detail in the valves, as well as highlights I dropped in some strips of black card to add some contrast and show the shape of the valves to. The shots were e-mailed to the client on Monday night, approved this morning and the valves returned to my client by special delivery this afternoon. Lets hope the postman doesn't leave them at my clients backdoor...

Called a client this morning, just on the...

2011-05-25T19:55:00.003+01:00

... off chance they might have some work knocking about. Result! A box of bit and pieces that need simple product shots, on grey and white backgrounds. Plus a new product... Wait for it... A wheelie bin lock! Yes, that's what I thought at first, but it seems lots of kids with nothing better to do than cause trouble find wheelie bins fascinating, almost irresistible. They can think of nothing better than tipping them over or opening them up and setting light to the contents. So this lock stops them opening the bin and it has a sensor alarm that goes off if someone tips it over. When the refuse collection operatives (bin men) come and empty the bins the lock opens when the bin is inverted, clever. Now to start photographing it, first I'll need a wheelie bin, ah, we still just have bin bags, though the council will be rolling wheelie bins out to us soon!

If you want to buy a particular camera...

2011-05-25T15:44:00.003+01:00

... or lens, it looks like you might be out of luck! I've just been reading an article on pdn's blog about camera stores in the states not having stock of certain types and models of camera, the Canon 5D MkII, 7D and some Nikon models as well as popular lenses like the new Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II, are all unavailable. So I did a little bit of checking with a few stores here in the UK, same problem. It looks like the production levels in Japan have got a long way to go to meet the demand for these precious items, the tsunami has had an enormous effect on current production models, what kind of delays will it have on the next generation of Pro models that we've all been waiting for from Nikon and Canon?

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/gear/Photographers-Face-C-2936.shtml

A trip to the woods brings an unexpected...

2011-05-14T14:21:00.006+01:00

... chance for a quick snap of my oldest lad. It was shot on my Canon 1Ds MkII with the 70-200 mm f4 L series lens, set at 150mm at f4.5 1/160 sec, though the file info says I'd got my 17-40 mm lens on, not sure what that's about! In photoshop I worked on the colour image then desaturated, lightened the eyes, then the face, but I wanted the eyes to draw you into the picture so I worked on them a little more darkening some parts and lightening others a little more. I like the shot, so does my wife, my son likes it, the police officer who came to talk about the action we wanted to take over our smashed car window liked it to, can't wait to show my Mum and Dad, must get printing now.

I've been wanting to...

2011-05-13T21:32:00.003+01:00

... post on my blog for a couple of days, but like everyone else in the Blogger world it's been off-line for a few days. Now it's back, but I seem to have forgotten what I was going to blog about. Ho hum, next time.

I don't want to be a scene of crime...

2011-05-11T09:18:00.008+01:00

... photographer, but I've taken on that mantle this week when a school kid threw a handful of stones down our road to try and hit another boy and managed to put stones through my neighbours and my car windows. I'm hoping that it'll all be resolved without resorting to the Police, though they've been informed (another statistic). The photographs are really for my insurance company, if I need them, as well as evidence for the police to use if the case goes further. I'm off to the school later today as the head teacher is very interested in the incident. I'm just relieved that my young boys weren't out in the garden playing when the stones cascaded down, the thought makes me cringe.

Anyone got a dust pan and brush?

It's alive...

2011-05-04T10:28:00.006+01:00

Finally got the new site up and running, though I've just noticed that the about page just has a picture of me on it and nothing else, whoops! I'll have to put that right tonight as I've now got to head out into the lovely sunshine and take some photographs, it's a hard life...

Update: 05/05/2011
All sorted, about page has been populated, I do hope that's the right word!

Some new bits and pieces on the desk...

2011-04-30T20:51:00.013+01:00

There have been a few resent changes to the equipment on my desk, a 20 inch Apple Cinema Display has replaced the old 17 inch screen and I've installed an Icy Box IB-111StUS2-Wh Docking Station. This is for the updating of the off site hard drives, which are usually stored at a top secret location (my Dad's house) for the reassurance of extra back up of all my data. The unit comes with USB 2.0 or eSATA connection, the eSATA being far faster and my obvious choice.

The Icy Box unit has quite a small footprint and is extremely easy to use during my weekly Monday back up of all data to a eSATA 1.5 TB drive, that my Dad drops off in the morning and takes away later the same day. The drives travel in these Icy Box plastic cases (below) which keep them safe from dust and moisture.

The iPhone 4 , pictured below, has a pair of external batteries, I got these just incase the phone battery died out on location, one travels in my camera bag, the other usually accompanies my iPad.

The film cameras on the windowsill are all still in use, the Rolleicord and Canon EOS 1N more than the Nikon FM, which has gathered a bit of dust and needs a damned good clean, on well out with the canned air.

New website tantalisingly close...

2011-04-18T22:00:00.010+01:00

So after a lot of time spent relearning Dreamweaver I've finally got the new website working, at least it works fine in dreamweaver and reviewing it in Safari. So soon it'll go live, with it yet another marketing push to attract attention to the site.

There are a lot of similarities with the old site, but this one now centres properly when you open the page, I'm still using a slightly panoramic image, though I'm working on a different portfolio using small image buttons to lead to larger images, when I've got that working how I'd like it to that will go live, though that might be a while yet.

I'm hoping to go live with the new site next week, the marketing should be printed by then to, so I imagine I'll be buying a big block of postage stamps real soon. I've still got the keywording to finish, a very important part of the whole project and I'm waiting for a few testimonials to turn up.

And I'd just like to say...

2011-04-12T14:07:00.006+01:00

... hello to everyone out there in blogging land, I've got really interested in audience stats recently. I'm not sure exactly why as I don't seem to be getting any work through the ramblings I write on this blog, but it's interesting to see where the readers are coming from, I'd especially like to say hello to the guys or girls in Iran who seem to like what I'm blabbering on about, and are moving their country up the audience location tables and are neck and neck with the USA this week. I find that rather amusing.

Oh and Brazil, you're trailing this week, as my old teacher use to say 'You could do better!'

Upgraded the iPhone...

2011-04-12T13:52:00.004+01:00

Finally got my upgrade to the Apple iPhone4, I got my old 3G about two months before the iPhone4 came out, the 3GS was available, but I didn't need video, I just needed a phone. So just how wrong can you be? This little piece of technology is going to be invaluable, I've just down loaded a time lapse video app and I'm already thinking of ideas to use it on. I've already played with the Facetime feature, but I think looking up the nose of a client whilst in conversation might not be such a good idea. So now it's time to play with the phone and figure out just what a difference it's going to make to my working day, if it's anything like the difference the iPhone3G made it's going to be great. Oh you can guarantee now I've got the iPhone4 the iPhone5 will hit the streets in a month or two!

Always find someone to hold the QP card...

2011-04-07T15:00:00.007+01:00

QP cards are great, simple to use and always give you a good head start for working on raw images in photoshop, the only thing you have to do is find someone to hold them for your initial shot.

I got mine from Colour Confidence, link below, other purveyors of quality grey and colour charts are available.

https://shop.colourconfidence.com/product.php/1822/qp-card-101/31981539ed87c3d176ed0620084f94b4

A working weekend...

2011-04-04T08:54:00.008+01:00

This weekend hasn't been the greatest I can remember, Saturday was lovely, the sun was shining, it was warm, and I was stuck in a room shooting paper, plastic and hesian bags for a catalogue. Okay I shouldn't moan it's work and that isn't so easy to come by these days. So whilst I filled, arranged and shot the bags, my wife kept my two boys entertained, gardening and playing football.

Sunday, Mothering Sunday no less, a time of cards, flowers and chocolates, started well, my wife was really happy with her hand made cards off the boys, her eyes lit up when they presented her with a big box of Maltesers too. I still had a few shots to do so whilst my wife took the boys to see her mum I continued shooting. This took longer than I'd anticipated and before I knew it the wife was home and wanting to go out for the family walk we'd discussed before she'd left.

I finally got the job wrapped and packed, we got our walk, down to the park so the kids could have a good play on the swings, slides and roundabouts, and on the way back the heavens opened and we got a good soaking.

Sometimes being self-employed ain't so good, you have to balance work and home life, but it's difficult when you have a deadline for a job, even if it mean working on Mothers Day.

Some days it pays to...

2011-03-30T16:36:00.004+01:00

...get on the phone and call your existing clients, just on the off chance that they have some work waiting in the wings. Today is just such a day, as well as calling I've been sending out an e-mail mailer to clients that have been inactive for over 6 months. The result, two jobs for next week, another for the week after and a few jobs coming in over the next two months. If you don't try you don't get!

The blog traffic is on the up.......................

2011-03-29T11:38:00.002+01:00

Well whoever you are, thank you, the traffic to the blog is steadily climbing, so I must be doing something right. I'm hoping to keep up a more steady posting regime with more titbits from my weekly activity. Unless I'm to busy, or I forget!

Happy British Summer Time......................

2011-03-27T08:22:00.004+01:00

Finally British Summer Time heralds the arrival of longer days, brighter skies, warmer weather. Though not today, it's very grey, cool and misty. Oh well fingers crossed that's not going to last to long, I hope to really get started on my personal projects now. Happy picture taking people.

Happy Belated 10th Birthday................OSX

2011-03-26T10:46:00.003Z

Ten years ago Apple changed the look and way that their operating system worked, OS 9 development stopped and OS-X was the new kid on the block. The first incarnation wasn't that great, it was buggy and it required a quick update that arrived six months later. Since then it's got better and better with every major update. I've been using it ever since I bought my first iMac (I've still got that lovely Blue 450 GHz iMac in the loft- it still works) and if Apple keep making software that works so well and makes my working life easier I'll continue to use it.

Happy Birthday OS-X, if I'd have remembered I'd have baked a cake!

Today I've been shooting Vans.....................

2011-03-24T20:02:00.009Z

I've had these Vans shoes in the wardrobe for a couple of months, bought them in a sale at the local Vans shoes shop. I didn't buy them to photograph them but I was looking at them the other day with just a desk lamp lighting them from behind and I felt I had to replicate what I was seeing using flash heads, or as it turned out flash head.

I set up a grey background and used a Bowens 500 Pro head with a 7" reflector and a 30º grid with a red gel gaffer taped to it to light it. The shoe was placed on a stand with a Manfrotto studio clamp attached so the shoe had a stable platform to sit on. The shoe is filled with socks to bulk it out a bit otherwise it could have looked a bit flat.

The main light came from six feet away, six feet up and at an angle of about 30º to 40º from the front of camera. This was another Bowens 500 Pro head mounted on a Manfrotto Aluminium Senior Stand with casters, the head had a beauty dish with barn doors to control any spill. For many of the images I had the lights at almost their lowest settings as I wanted a very shallow depth of field, about f5.6, except for the shot at the top of the whole shoe which was shot at f18. Only one light was used to illuminate the shoe, a piece of silver card was used to reflect light back into certain parts of the shoe.

Sometimes it pays to play with lighting set ups and make a note of how you've achieved certain images, you never know when you'll get a product in that would look good using a particular set up. Just remember to make a note of everything, distances from lights to object, to camera distance, what grids or light modifiers you've used, f-stops, etc. I've got a heap of note books that I've filled with lighting set ups, even of ideas that haven't worked to well, you can always come back to the ideas and refine them.

Van photo for fish and chips........................

2011-03-24T19:42:00.007Z

This is a van belonging to my neighbour, he's a tiler and recently qualified plumber. The vinyl was applied a couple of weeks ago and my neighbour asked if I could do a quick shot for some flyers he's going to get printed. So where do the fish and chips come in I hear you ask, well my neighbour also has a very good fish and chip shop, has the penny dropped yet? We have come to an arrangement over payment for the image, it'll come with salt and vinegar, curry sauce too if that takes my fancy.

The van was shot on his driveway, using the wonderful sunshine we experienced here today and a Bowens 750 Pro flash head with a beauty dish set at full power, a small canon speedlite was used to light the tyres and help fill in some of the darker areas, the resulting 6 images were dropped onto each other in layers in Photoshop and the unwanted portions of the image were erased. Then the layers were merged and in Selective Colours the red, blue, green were adjusted to bring out the colours of the vinyls. I used a cut-out to drop the background of the driveway and put some shadow effect around the bottom of the vehicle and around the tyres so it didn't look like it was floating on a white background.

That'll be cod and chips twice, two sausage and chips for the boys, now do I want curry sauce?

Rolleicord.........................................................2

2011-03-23T13:04:00.009Z

Finally got around to playing with the old Rolleicord again, again my eldest lad was the subject of the photographs (my youngest was having a nap at the time). It was out with the skateboards, helmets, a light-meter, two rolls of Fuji Neopan 400 and of course the Rolleicord. I knew I wasn't going to get the best action shots in the world from the camera, but that wasn't really what I was after. If I'd wanted action shots then the Canon 1Ds MkII would have made an appearance. I like this set of pictures, one, because my son is in them, two, because we had a lot of fun doing them and three because you can slowly see the energy draining out of my son, he had a good old rest after these were shot, it gave him a good appetite for his dinner to.

DJ head shots............................................

2011-03-18T20:37:00.006Z

This is Arwyn Hughes, he's a DJ, spends most of the year travelling around the Mediterranean and Greek Islands, living the life and playing the music he loves. Brief, simple head shots.....

So I know you're stumbling........................

2011-03-12T15:23:00.003Z

...... onto this blog from far and wide. Now don't deny it I've seen the stats, it can't just be my family and friends checking out the blog, pretty sure I haven't got relatives or friends in half the places that are popping up in the audience stats. So if you see this whilst you're flicking through your blog list, or are just bored and are surfing through any old junk you find out in the www, come say hi, comment, good or bad, I can take criticism (probably), tell me what you want to see, what you don't, whether the blog bores the pants off you and you'll never view it again in a million years. It wont hurt you, you don't know me from Adam.

Go on give it a shot.

Project Skateboarding off and running.........

2011-03-11T20:08:00.002Z

So what's else am I going to be working on? Well I'm looking at fitness images, training, weight work, that sort of thing, funky angles and lighting. Just need to start setting it all in motion. Watch this space.

Skateboarding project................................

2011-03-09T10:09:00.008Z

Finally started my skateboarding project, these images are really just tests to check that my Bowens 500 and 750 Pro heads will freeze the action, they were taken at Ramp City skatepark in Blackpool last Saturday evening. I've got to thank the guys for putting up with me, I think the sentence 'Okay but can you do that trick again' will be ringing around the ramp area even now.

I also took some images with Canon speedlights, these were shot on the highest halfpipe in the country, I've been skateboarding for over 30 years and just looking down from the top was a little scary, but I'm getting old so that's my excuse.

Focus-On-Imaging 2011..............................

2011-03-01T13:56:00.003Z

Well I think I'll be giving Focus-on-imaging a miss this year, there isn't any gear that I'm desperate to look at , I'll be in Blackpool photographing skateboarders till midnight on Saturday and wont get home till nearly 2 am, so wont feel like a trip down to Birmingham on Sunday morning. I'm tied up with work and meetings Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so I think I'll start looking forward to Focus-on-imaging 2012, Canon and Nikon might have released their new pro model cameras by then, they do seem to be dragging their collective feet as far as pro models are concerned, they are probably both working on a competitor to Fuji's X100 which seems to be in a class of it's own at the moment. I'm not the only one giving the show a miss this year, Canon have cancelled their space at the show, so there will probably be Canon roadshows all over the country this year so we can get to play with all the toys.

You will have mail......................................

2011-02-17T12:38:00.003Z

So I'm working on some A5 mailers to go out to local business, it's designed to be a bit in your face with the torn newspaper demand note hopefully getting the full attention of whoever opens the envelope. It will also include a selection of two or three additional pages with some images. Fingers crossed I will get some work out of this as it's gone a wee bit quiet of late.

A face in the clouds....................................

2011-02-16T16:27:00.003Z

Some times when you play to long in photoshop you end up with something weird, this was very weird to start with, its a mirror image of a cloud taken on a very thundery day. Can you see a face in the clouds?

This is what happens when you spend a bit more time on it, I'm calling it The Turin Cloud! I can feel the thunder bolts brewing now!

New website............................. Well no, but!

2011-02-05T07:07:00.001Z

So the realisation was I needed an iPad to really make my site iPad friendly. Popping down to the nearest Apple store to check if I'd made the correct adjustment to make the width of the site fit was a bit impractical. In the end all I needed to do was drop an empty box below the main page in Dreamweaver to make the page deeper, a simple adjustment and with an iPad next to my Mac a quick one. Still working on a new site but can take my time now.

Monday morning dilemma..........................

2011-01-24T09:36:00.004Z

Okay the dilemma is about which magazine to read first, PDN and Professional Photographer (UK) have both dropped through the letterbox this morning. It's trivial I know but it's monday morning and for a change I've nothing better to do for an hour or two. I think I need to put the kettle on, PDN first me thinks.

Adventures in Apertureland........................

2011-01-20T15:45:00.003Z

So with the introduction of Apples new App Store came Aperture 3 at the knock-down price of £44.95, question. Who hasn't bought it? Thought as much. I'd downloaded the trial version ages ago and really didn't get to play with it much before I'd used up the 30 day trial period. I've got it installed on the Mac Pro and the Mac Book now and last week I was experimenting with the tethered capability on the laptop, okay it's not the quickest model and it's only churning on 2GB of memory so I was experiencing some hang time between images but on the whole it was an enjoyable experience. I set up one of my eldest sons toys that Father Christmas dropped by last month and played with the lighting a bit to get the effect I was after. I have to say that my adventures in Apertureland look set to continue, having figured out by trial and error and later by watching the excellent how-to videos that Apple provide on their site, I'm really taking to this software.

Happy New Year.......................................

2011-01-03T11:02:00.003Z

With Christmas out of the way and New Year done and dusted it's back to putting the business head on. So much to do and as usual so little time to get it done, chasing money owed is one of the first priorities, well I've a tax man to pay at the end of the month and he don't like waiting and he'll fine you if you're late with payment.

My new slogan for 2011 is 'Marketing, marketing and then a bit more marketing' well it's predicted to be a bad year might as well try and get the most out of it.

Going... going... going... gone!.....................

2010-12-31T11:44:00.004Z

..... Kodachrome is no more, at least come Thursday it wont be. The last roll gets processed at Dwayne's Photo in Kansas, the last lab in the world still operating a K-14 line, the last roll to be processed was shot by owner Dwayne Steinle. When I closed BZ colour labs (Chester) down the last roll that went through the E-6 process was one of mine, it's kind of personal, like putting a big full stop on the line, it's over and mine was the last roll! Haven't got a clue where that last roll of 120 is, must go and dig it out. Goodbye Kodachrome you've had your day and we'll not see the like again.

New Year, new plan, new clients?................

2010-12-31T11:06:00.004Z

It's that time of year to sit back and reflect on what the last twelve months have brought. It's been a roller-coaster of a year for me, the first few months were some of the busiest ever, unfortunately they were followed by a few lean months, which make me shudder even now. Through the summer clients started spending more on their advertising and thankfully on new photography to go with it. A couple of big jobs came in and everything started looking a bit rosier, there will still months that were a bit short on work but generally it was on the up.

So what has this shown me, simple more marketing, advertise myself more, GET MY NEW WEBSITE FINISHED, that's got to happen soon and hopefully pick up a few new clients. Also re-new my relationships with a couple of clients I've not heard from for nearly a year, sometimes I forget to send an e-mail asking how things are going or forget to make that catchup call, though I remembered to pop and e-card this Christmas, with some nice responses.

So may you have a happy and prosperous New Year.

What's in the back of the van.......................

2010-12-23T12:34:00.005Z

This was shot way back in 2006, the client wanted images to go on the back of their fleet vehicles. Alex the Marketing Manager came up with the idea of looking into the back of the vehicles showing what equipment they carried along with an engineer. The shots were taken in the company vehicle maintenance bays using a Mercedes Vito and Sprinter van, the Vito was first up, with shelving and multicoloured boxes and parts it really lended itself well to being photographed. Rather than lining the camera up centrally we set up slightly to our left looking along the shelving and giving me the opportunity to open the vehicles side door and set up a light to illuminate the interior, something I would have struggled to do with just the two softbox fitted Bowens heads that were aimed at the back of the vehicle. Having set up the lighting (as shown in the diagram above) and filling the shelving with the right equipment e.g. anything that looked good, we got our model to start posing, even during the shoot I had a feeling this was the image the client would choose, it just works.

Next up was the shot in the Sprinter van, this involved a ramp and a very large wheeled equipment trolley, we got Carl one of the van crews to stand at the back of the van as if he was helping push the trolley out, getting light on him was a bit of a problem but I popped a beauty dish with barn doors on and aimed it into the dark recesses of the vehicle. I still needed a little work in Photoshop to even out the fore and background lighting.

It's all change now with the vehicles after four years, the fleet is turning silver and the back doors are now being graced with just the company logo, I'm going to miss seeing these pictures of mine whilst driving up and down the motorway, I seemed to see at least one of the vans out on the road every time I was on the motorway.

Police image..................... Lighting diagram

2010-12-15T13:58:00.004Z

I was shooting a head/helmet camera designed for police use last week, this is one of the shots I took just of the guy, Tim, who had been roped in to do the modelling. The lighting remained the same for the head camera shot, I just got Tim to step forward so that the left side of his face would go darker, the side light to the left was then just lighting the white background, though there is a slight spill of light creeping onto the left side of the helmets band. The main light was to my right, a Bowens 750watt Gemini Pro head with a Redwing 70 x 120 cm softbox, the centre of which was just inline with the police helmet, giving me the shadow I wanted to the left side of the face along the side of the nose and a hint of darkness under the chin.

The shot below illustrates how I used the side light to put a catch light on the small camera on Tim's shoulder, it also puts enough light into the side of his head and clothes to improve the look of the image.

It's Christmas......... So here's the Santa shot

2010-12-15T10:37:00.004Z

I had a shoot for a client last Friday, they were putting on a Santa's Grotto for a local disabled school. All the kids got teddy bears with their names on them, bit of a logistical nightmare but very touching. There wasn't a great deal of room in the Grotto area for me to set up so I just stuck a 750watt Bowens Gemini Pro head on a stand just to the right of my shooting position. Popped a white shoot through brolly on the flash, now there was a large glass brick wall behind the flash head, this definitely put a bit more reflected light back into the room. I was getting f11 at half power and was good to go, 80 kids later and Santa had probably lost a few pounds in weight, but to see the smiles on the kids faces it was so worth it.

Rejigged the office today..............................

2010-11-25T12:42:00.011Z

My office has always been dominated by a big old Apple 21 inch Studio screen, sometimes two 21 inch studio screens, but not anymore, they've been consigned to the garage (doesn't my back know it). This has left space for my Mac Pro to move up off the floor and onto the desk, which is useful as I don't have to rummage around under the desk every time I want to put a disk in the machine. As you can see next to the Mac are a stack of iomega minimax external hard drives, there are three 1TB and two 2TB drives, these mirror the drives in the Mac, though now the 2TB drives are being used as a mirrored pair for back up as the Mac drives are pretty much full (though new internal drives are next on the order list). I like the iomega drives, as well as having multiple ports on the back for chaining them together they've always worked very well and look great next to the Mac. The new 2TB drives only come with Firewire 800 and USB2 ports, I use the Firewire as I've never been enamored with USB, finding it to slow.

The MacPro, as well as having all four drive bays full, has 8GB of memory to help keep the programs zipping along nicely. That's it as far as up-grades to how the machine came as standard. The Apple screen is an old 17 inch LCD display, not exactly cutting edge I know but such an improvement on the flickering CRT, I'm looking at up-grading to a bigger screen but will be waiting till the start of the next financial year before parting with any money.

My trusty Wacom pad, I really can't understand anyone who still uses a mouse for re-touching in Photoshop, it's become a real asset to my workflow I'd be lost without it. The new Magic Trackpad from Apple looks and feels great, I've played with them in store but haven't yet shelled out for one, maybe soon. The Mac clock on the wall of the office I made from parts of an old G4, the clock mechanism was bought on e-bay, different and fun.

New Lens................................... Coffee Cup

2010-11-01T09:58:00.006Z

Drinking coffee from a 24-105mm f4 L IS USM lens is such a laugh. When my wife saw me she got quiet a shock. This quickly turned to 'So where did you get that from?' the answer Hong Kong, the link is at the bottom of the post, they also sell the 70-200mm Canon lens/coffee cup that Canon gave out to snappers at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. It's on my wish list, roll on Christmas. You'll have to excuse the image quality, iPhone 3G camera is nothing if not a little rubbish......

http://100milligrams.com/canon-24105mm-lens-coffee-p-262.html

You know things are slow when..................

2010-10-27T12:18:00.005+01:00

You know things are slow when the model agencies start ringing touting for work. I've not had a job that has required models since February, okay that's not true, I've had jobs that required models but I've been forced to use employees at companies I've been working at instead. This always means more work for me, using an agency model is so much easier, they take direction well and they want to be there being photographed, that cannot be said for company employees who tend to want to be anywhere but in front of a camera. The final shot is always going to be affected and all for the sake of saving money.

Calumet................................. Downsizing!

2010-10-20T15:31:00.003+01:00

So I got a letter from Calumet Photographic late last week, attached was a £10 voucher to spend at the Manchester branch and only the Manchester branch. So I then read the letter, discovering that the Liverpool branch is to close at the end of the year, literally the end of the year 31st December. I think it's sad that they're closing the Brunswick Business Park store, for me it's far easier to get to than taking a trip down the M56 to Manchester, a trip that has taken me anything up to 3 hours to get there and back. Okay I can bitch and moan about it but that's not going to change anything. Everyone is downsizing in one way or another these days, governments, companies, households, everybody is changing the way they spend money so I guess I've got to go with the flow. Now what can I get for £10 at Calumet?

Photokina........................... No Pro Models!

2010-09-22T16:20:00.002+01:00

Just been reading some of the blogs from Photokina, it's very interesting, everyone is picking up on the fact that Canon haven't announced the new incarnation of the 1Ds, there's no 5D MkIII and Nikon haven't up-graded the D3X. So what's going on? The compact market is going off, everybody's aim seems to be to flood this lucrative market with new models, it's like the pro market has lost it's lustre, have we already got enough toys to buy, well yes, yes we have. The rumour mongers are pre-empting the camera manufacturers and suggesting what they want next, maybe the manufacturers want to sell a few more of their existing high end cameras before retooling for the next megapixel monsters to hit the market. I think the attention now will be for the missing new pro models to appear for PMA in the spring but you never know. Maybe, just maybe this new love affair with compacts will continue for a bit longer.

Fuji FinePix X100.............................. Nice

2010-09-20T10:06:00.006+01:00

Talk about retro styling, if this new model from Fuji works as good as it looks then I think they're on to a winner. 12megapixel APS-C chip a 23mm lens (equivalent to 35mm lens on a full frame chip) and it shoots 720p HD video. With a few manufacturers now sticking bigger DSLR chips into there top end compacts can a full frame 35mm chip compact be that far off, who's going to be brave enough to bring that out. It's got to happen at some point.

Extra: So Photokina has finally got underway and the X100 is causing quite a stir, I'm not surprised with those looks and the speck of this little compact I think Fuji are onto a winner. It's going to be down to price point as to what sort of volume they shift these little beauties in, I know I'd like to be snapping my incidental location shots, video clips and family shots with this cute camera. Mr Fuji how much?

New iPhone software..... Will the joy return

2010-09-08T22:25:00.004+01:00

The new iPhone 4.1 software has finally appeared for download. I've been waiting for this with baited breath, will my iPhone 3G finally start to work brilliantly again, like it did before loading 4.0. I hope so, the last few month have been blighted by the poor performance of the internet and many of the apps on my phone, apps crashing before they even finish loading and trying to load a page from the web was so painfully slow that I usually gave up and switched off. Steve Jobs has promised this will sort all the bugs out, strange that nobody at Apple noticed the problems the 3G and 3GS were having during testing before the release of iOS4. Though I have to admit the software glitches only really started to make their presents felt after a few weeks.

Well fingers crossed I've finished downloading and installing the software, I'm off to test my phone, I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

Extra, extra, read all about it! Just been putting the iPhone through it's paces and I can report it's all good, the joy returns.

Rolleicord...................................................

2010-08-30T22:35:00.004+01:00

I'd cleaned it, got rid of the dust, polished the lenses, loaded some Fuji Neopan 400CN and I didn't stop shooting till two rolls had wound through my old Rolleicord. It was great to be shooting with this vintage camera again, I don't think my light meter has had as much use in years as the sun was popping in and out like a fiddlers elbow. I was a little worried that the shutter might have given up the ghost, as the camera has really just been gathering dust on a shelf for about 18 years, but happy to say it seems to be working fine and was easily able to capture my two boys in their excitement to be out playing on their bike, while Dad ran around like an idiot with a strange looking box around his neck.

I got the film processed and scanned to 65MB files at C-41's, a lab that use to be situated in Chester but has moved out to bigger and far better premises in Ellesmere Port. Now I must get some prints done for the Grand Parents.....

More from the Rolleicord very soon I hope, as another two rolls of Neopan await exposure....

Angry Clouds.............................................

2010-08-30T22:27:00.005+01:00

The other week we had a short sharp electric storm pass over the house, I grabbed my camera and opened a window and started shooting. The cloud was moving quickly and I had to move from a window at the back of the house to one at the front to get the area of cloud I was interested in. It was just alive with movement moving in on itself like something out of a sci-fi movie. I've really only just taken a look at the images today, but I think they're going to come in handy for a comp shot I have in mind.

Bowens gear and radio slaves from e-bay.....

2010-08-11T13:30:00.005+01:00

I've been using the Bowens Pro heads for a while now and have been very impressed with their performance as well as the new design. Have they made my life easier, oh yes, with the clear side panel information I always know what the settings are, the tenth of stop adjustment is great for tweaking light output.

My old radio slave system finally gave up the ghost recently, so I had a look on e-bay to see what's available, I thought I'd give a Chinese system a go, the cost was so cheap, I got 2 transmitters and 5 receivers for under £45, these have worked brilliantly for a few months now in a variety of situations, they've not let me down once.

Quick page shuffle.......... New home page to.

2010-08-06T09:23:00.002+01:00

So the home page has had a quick change and I've shuffled some of the other pages images to, this while working on the new iPhone/iPad friendly site, which is taking sometime to get sorted. I've been doing a lot of PR shots recently and security product shots too, so that's been keeping me off Dreamweaver, hence the delay. Bought Capture One 5 the other week, so I'm also learning a new raw conversion program, which is making my workflow a little slower, I like it though and am really pleased with the results I'm getting, still using Photoshop for some of the finishing work, especially correcting verticals etc. Hoping that all the rain we're getting at the moment is going to lay off soon, I've got a few skateboarding shoots to do, personal project, all this rain is really putting a hold on getting the shoots organised.

iPad. The changes that will come with it.......

2010-07-25T20:52:00.007+01:00

I've now read a lot about the iPad, I've held one in my hand at an Apple store too, I've done what most photographers have probably done and checked out how my website looks on the new device. Oh bugger, it doesn't fit! So now come the problem, website redesign. My site doesn't fit on my iPhone either so I knew I'd need to get around to this sooner or later, but with the way the iPad is being picked up as the next big thing within the creative world, a redesign is screaming out to be started. This of course is a good thing, new images will get picked, the site will be tweaked and hopefully will look a little better than before. I've already got the design pretty much worked out on paper so watch this space, oh and if you have an iPad already, this is all for you!

PDN.................................. It's bloody great

2010-07-13T15:13:00.003+01:00

I let my subscription to PDN magazine slip a couple of months ago, silly thing to do really as it's got to be one of the best magazines for the professional photographer period. I of course get Professional Photographer magazine here in the UK and with it's new editor, layout and editorial content it's a huge improvement compared to how it use to be, but PDN is just that bit more cutting edge, just a bit more professional and though I hate to say it of an American publication, just that more relevant to the working photographer. I'm really looking forward to the next issue dropping on the doormat, I've also ordered the few issues I missed and dropped a big notice in my iCalendar not to let the sub slip again!

iPhone iOS 4............................ I'm waiting!

2010-06-24T08:26:00.005+01:00

So yesterday I spent a few fruitless hours trying to download iOS 4 for my iPhone 3G. No matter how long I waited the damned thing would just hang after about 20 minutes. For some reason this morning I woke up just after 5 am (not because of the kids for a change), I popped the MacPro on and crossed my fingers, must have helped as this time everything went according to plan, maybe the server was overloaded with people trying to do exactly the same thing I was or maybe, just maybe there was a glitch.......... Nah, it's Apple for heaven sake! You must excuse me, going to have a play with my iPhone...............

Back again, the new software seems to be working fine, the new look of the apps pages is very OS-X like, I don't seem to have lost anything, though my mail went and picked up every resent e-mail that hasn't yet been deleted off the server, so going through 187 e-mails again and deleting them again was a bit of a pain, still it's done now. So, so far so good............

Working!...............................On a Sunday!

2010-05-09T19:25:00.005+01:00

Working on a Sunday! Just been finishing off some images for a Security company. An unusual image of a Karabina being used as a anti-theft device on a handbag and a rucksack, the Karabina clips the zip pulls together so no-body can go rummaging in your rucksack if you've got your back to them. So I set up two Bowens 500 heads, one with a beauty dish, the other a 100mm x 70mm Redwing softbox, using just the interior baffle. The softbox was camera left, the beauty dish camera right and about 45º to the background, which was a Calumet 107 cm x 198 cm Light Control Panel with a White translucent cover. The Canon had the trusty 24-70 mm f2.8L lens and was fitted with a 16 channel remote release, I stepped in as the model, thankfully it was just a shot looking from the rear. Pressing the remote lightly activates the autofocus on the camera and then pushing the button all the way fires the shutter. It's amazing what you can do on your own these days.

May's gone quiet..........................Till today!

2010-05-05T15:40:00.005+01:00

So it's been a little bit slow so far this month, I've been finishing off some kitchen location photography, still have a few sites to do, but that's existing work nothing new has appeared, till today! So the phone rang and mail let out a ring, the call was a job, much nicer than having someone trying to sell me ad space I don't want, the e-mail was also a job in Manchester, though it's not happening till the 21st. It's not going to keep the wolf from the door but it all helps, I suppose I've been pretty lucky since November I've been really busy, non stop, but now I get a few slack weeks and I begin to panic. Panic over the phones going again.

Made up my mind....................................

2010-03-25T08:48:00.007Z

New lighting kit.... Bowens Gemini 500 Pro 2 head kit with travel pak and a Gemini 750 Pro head, that's gonna be the new kit in my lighting case. I've hummed and harred about it since Focus-On-Imaging, this seems to fit the bill best, I'll need the short flash exposure times (t=0.5 1/2400s) for the high speed shots I'm planning to do but they will be a useful addition to my lighting kit for my general commercial work. It'll leave me with nine heads so I reckon a couple of the old Espirt 500 heads will be heading towards e-bay as I usually get away with six heads at most. So come April 6th I'm going shopping.....

So what you gonna do...............................

2010-03-24T09:16:00.008Z

So what you gonna do now spring is sprung, the days are getting longer, we've even had some sunshine, the snow shows no sign of returning, at least according to the weathermen, so we should probably start worrying. I'm going to get out and shoot some stock, I've got a list of stuff I need to shoot and another list of stuff I want to shoot, whether they'll sell is another matter, but isn't that really what photography is all about, shooting what YOU want to?

It's how I started with photography, I wanted to capture my friends skateboarding back in the late 70's, I could always draw what I saw but having photographs for reference made it easier, till capturing the guys in photographs became the only goal. My subject matter stayed pretty focused for a few years before I started to turn my camera, by then a Russian Zenith TTL, on family and the things going on around me. I want to go back to that early passion, skateboarding is on the list, near the top, but I'm really looking at it as a big project, trying to reach a few of the older pro skaters I remember from my youth, 30 years on most of them are still skateboarding. The pictures are going to be more creative now, thanks to battery packs for monolight flash units, the rapid move in flash technology for outdoor shooting is a god send for what I've got planned. I'm hoping to get started in April, just got to firm up a few dates and locations. I'd better get those battery packs on charge.

Day trip to...................... Focus-On-Imaging

2010-03-12T06:04:00.006Z

I missed last years Focus on imaging event at the NEC, I'd just got to much work to do to be able to justify taking a day off and going for a jolly to Birmingham. I could of gone on the Sunday but the thought of the huge crowds of photography enthusiasts with their bulging Billingham camera bags always puts me off that idea, plus Dave Lee Travis might be there that day! He was there this Monday, my mate Tony spotted him.

So I was quite looking forward to a day plodding around halls 9 and 10 packed to the gunnels with the latest cameras, lighting and gadgets. I was looking for some new monolights, so headed over to the Bowens stand to have a play with the new Gemini 750 Pro heads, I've been using Bowens for the last nine years and have invested a lot in the system so wasn't really looking to change to a different manufacturer, not that it stopped me looking at other kit. The Hensel portable kit look really great, well thought out, but strong and lightweight thanks to the Lithium batteries and the metal construction. Wasn't to impressed with the Elinchrom ranger kit, to much plastic for my liking, the brolly attachment on the head look downright flimsy. The Profoto and Broncolor kit just oozed quality and refinement but it comes at a hell of a price tag too match, maybe if I win some money on the lottery, sigh, I wish!

I sat in on one of the talks on the Phase One stand, which was interesting, learned a lot about the use of smoke to create interest and mood in the background of a photograph, I remember my old boss used smoke bombs on various calendar shoots twenty years ago and getting the same sort of results, there's nothing really new when it comes to ideas for shots in photography. Phase One were right across from Leaf stand, same company different embroidered polo shirts. Hasselblad didn't turn up this year, they've got their own road-show tours going on around the country, I'd think they'd get better results going to the pros, rather than hoping they'd come to them at Focus. At least they avoided the tyre kickers how are never going to part with at least £15K of Blad gear.

Popped over to Bob Rigby Photographics stand and had a chat with Simon and Garry, there's always someone buying something from them at anytime you arrive at their stand. We wheeled and dealed for a while about equipment pricing and came to an arrangement on said Bowens kit that I'm after. Later in the day saw Simon walking across the hall and had a quick chat but soon realised that the pained expression and foot dancing he was doing that he was in dire need of a restroom and let him go on his way.

Looking around the halls there was a strong college presence, but the biggest presence was for wedding albums, well sod that, I went looking for camera gear, taking in Nikon, Canon and a couple of other manufacturers too. Looked at all the lovely inkjet machines as they frantically ran print after print to prove their worth. Saw my old Fuji rep from the E-6 processing days, Martin, now game-fully employed at Pro Film and Digital in Manchester, it was nice to catch up, I've not seen him for over 8 years, they had a couple of Sinar P2's for sale, reckon they'll be taking those home with them. A lot of second hand Canon and Nikon kit, in nice condition also graced the stand.

Saw Ben at Minute Film, selling holga cameras and lots of polaroid film, it reminds me I've still got a roll of film in my holga, need to get out and shoot that soon. It must be a bit of a change for him after his years at Hasselblad but he certainly looked happy.

Well that was it will have to wait another year to take another jolly to the NEC, unless work prevents me, wonder if Pentax will be selling their new Medium format camera over here by then?

Studio shoot..........................1940's Style

2010-03-04T10:25:00.018Z

Cast & Crew:-

Models: Molly Melia and Tim Rotheram from PHA Model Management

Agency: Steve Ford from FerrymanBlue

Make-up: Nigel Hughes

Clothing: The Royal Exchange Theatre Company

Assistant: Clint Hughes

We had to recreate a 1940's style Hollywood movie promotional image for an ad, the client was quite specific in the feel the image had to convey, the use of period clothing, make up, hair styling was essential.

As you'll appreciate these things take time to come together, Molly had an hour and a half in hair and make up to capture the 40's look, Tim really just needed to have a shave and have a parting put in his gelled hair, with just a little touch up make up. The problem was when Tim went to put on the waistcoat that came with the jacket that no way was that going to fit. The jacket was a little on the tight side to, but as most of the shots would have the front of the jacket obscured it wasn't a big worry.

As the shoot progressed the usual changes to the original brief started, with a good mix of input from Steve, the client and myself leading to a more varied set of poses, with the models allowed to be creative on their own for the final fifteen minutes of the shoot. Which gave us some interesting shots to work with, though with the tight jacket it also gave me some work in photoshop to make it look less snug.

We chose Infocus Studios in Marple for this shoot, it was really well kitted out with 1000W Bowens Monolights running on ceiling tracking, every bowens reflector you could wish for, a good mix of different sized Wafers and Bowens softboxes and all set around an infinity cove. A seperate makeup/dressing room, a well appointed kitchen, though we just took advantage of the kettle and cups.

I just want to thank everyone involved for making the shoot run nice and smoothly, to Clint for capturing a few images during the shoot for the blog, note to self:- Must get an HD video camera next.

http://www.pha-agency.co.uk/

http://www.infocusstudios.co.uk/Studio.aspx

Quickload......................................... RIP

2010-03-03T15:32:00.006Z

You know some film products will be really missed, Fuji's Quickload will be one of them. Kodak first brought out 5X4 film in a packet, though it was a single sheet and it to used a Polaroid 545 film back, but it was Fuji that really moved the idea on with two sheets of film just like a proper dark-slide. I've used tones of the stuff, Velvia, Provia, Astia even 64T, it was just so convenient compared with loading and off loading dark-slides, great for working on location so much easier than humping a case full of dark-slides around. It's inevitable that Quickload would get axed, I've not used my 5X4 with film for 8 years now, I sold my 545 back on e-bay over two years ago, I like many others have turned their backs on large format film and it's a great product like Quickload that has been scrapped because of it. I feel a little bit ashamed, RIP Quickload, you were great in your day, but that's long gone.

Lego iPhone app...................... So much fun

2010-02-27T06:38:00.006Z

Some say simple things please simple minds, but this Lego photo app for the iPhone is just so much fun to play with.... Simple is good! This is a photo of my eldest son playing in the local park. I'm thinking that Lego should do a plug-in for Photoshop, or Lightroom, or Aperture, hell I'd buy it!

Black & White Child Portrait.................

2010-02-18T10:20:00.009Z

Shot this before Christmas but have been playing around with it after a request from the client for something different for some more prints for the family. Original print image is on the right, the one on the left has been bashed with a high pass filter and some heavy shading of the background and a touch on the clothing. A lightening of the eyes seemed necessary to. Client likes it so I'm happy.

Shooting film...................................Why?

2009-11-11T13:23:00.010Z

So why go and shoot some film, discipline, it can help you with digital workflow, like you'll learn to look more and shoot less, plus it could be fun! I'm heading out in the next couple of days and the DSLR is staying at home, it needs a break, it's been working pretty hard over the last three and a half years.

Instead I'm packing the vintage Rolleicord and an old Nikon FM, some rolls of film and a hand held light meter. The aim of this little exercise is to slow myself down, take stock of how I shoot and limit myself to using only two rolls of 120 and three rolls of 35mm film, potentially 108 images. Last Friday I shot 749 images in 5 hours for a client that was having a big firework/Halloween party, picking my way through the images in Photoshop it struck me that I'd been a little too snap happy. Usually when I'm shooting in the studio and I'd be more controlled with the number of images that I took, but that assignment on Friday got me thinking.

So I'm going to go and shoot some film, slow myself down, look for the shot rather that snap and pick later, it's just developing good practice. Probably wont get anything posted up here quickly, what with sending away for processing, prints and ironically a disk of scanned images, can't get away from bloody digital these days.....

A hand of cards...........................

2009-09-16T16:43:00.002+01:00

Shot this as a test for an ad for a fine ales brewery, it's a two part comp with a few little touches like the company logo appearing on the top of the poker chips, we required plenty of dark edges and the top of the image turning to black for the strap-line.

Beer, beer and more bottles...............

2009-08-13T16:21:00.009+01:00

I've been in the studio shooting beer bottles for a micro brewery, I have to say that it's been an enjoyable job, I've not touched a drop.... Honest..... YET.