A morning at…..Himley Hall

It’s been a while since my last blog, very busy at home and work and did not seem to be able to find the time to spare 30 minutes to do a blog. So here it is..

A few weeks ago I had a spare 30 minutes one morning and was driving past Himley Hall just outside Dudley. The only camera’s I had with me was my phone and my Konstructor camera. So, with only having used the Konstructor only once ( one film) and having already loaded it with Ilford FP4 i decided to give it another workout. So a quick walk around and the images were in the bag… or the roll depending upon your point of view.

Himley Hall was once the seat of the Earl of Dudley and the gardens laid out by one Capability Brown ( you might have heard of him).Well worth a visit if you are in the area, the house is not always open but the grounds are worth the walk.

June 22, 2016 1

Woman in chains

A while ago, the photo club that I am a member of decided to produce a photo book. There was no theme to the book, we were requested to submit up to 6 images, preferably on a theme of their own.

After mulling a few ideas over, I decided to go with one theme, the title from one of my favourite songs, Woman in Chains by Tears for Fears. I remember hearing it quite a few years ago and was struck by soulful voices and the message contained in it. So now I had my theme, I had to work out mu six images, out with the sketch book and pen and doddling began.

So after a while I had whittled my original ideas down to six. Now to take the concept out of the sketchbook and bring it to life, so to speak.

I collected a few props, most of them was in the house, a few I had to purchase, the chain and a new white backdrop.

And here they are, I kept them all black and white and in a portrait mode.

The first image is of the chains themselves.

The second image represents sex.

The third in the series, Childcare.

Look carefully on the chains, there is a babies dummy

The fourth image is for Cleaning.

The fifth, Cooking.

And the sixth and final image is Ironing.

All images were processed using Silver Efex Pro, a really great piece of software.

Thanks to my model for the afternoon, the chains were quite heavy and she put up with a lot from me, hopefully her efforts were worth it.

I took away a few ideas from doing this, and am now in the planning stages for more projects based on the titles of songs from my playlist.

Watch this space.

May 15, 2016 0

A new camera in the bag

During my recent visit to the Photography Show in March 2016 i decided to splash out on a brand new camera……sod the expense I had earnt it, so with no holding back i took the plunge and brought a new Konstructor camera from the nice people on the Lomography stand. Also visited the Ilford stand to splash out on few rolls of Ilford FP4 35mm film, well no good having the camera if I haven’t got a film to use in it.

So on a rainy weekend, out it came and I started to put it together. The manual reckons between 1 hour to 2 hours to build, 2 hours is closer to the mark, if you tried to do it in 1 hour, there is a chance that you could miss some important steps and screw it up.

Camera now built and loaded with film, time to find something to take picture off. I knew of a landmark just outside Warwick, and old windmill with easy access.

I enjoyed walking around and using the camera, did take some used to, there are only a few setting, either times at 1/60th or bulb mode, and a basic focusing ring. Fixed aperture at f10. It made a nice change from having a multitude of settings. Fixed lens was not an issue as I tend to use a 50mm or 90mm lens on my Canon.

Film exposed, and with developing tanks long since departed, it was off to the local lab to have the film developed and scanned onto CD, and then the wait to see if I had captured anything at all…..and surprise, i had.

So with CD in hand off to the computer and edit in Silver Efex, using the Antique Plate II setting. Kept quite simple really, no cropping no other edits.

Not all good and not all bad. Very much a learning curve.

So with another film already in the camera, time to head off again and keep on learning.

April 21, 2016 0

A Long Weekend in Bath

Though it was about time that we had a long weekend a way, so after much debate and thought, we choose to go to Bath. It had been quite a while since we last visited, at least 15 years.

So only armed with the two camera off we trotted around Bath.

The weather was not on our side, but still we trooped on. Got some decent shots on the phone and used Snapseed to enhance these. I have included them in the blog.

However, got a an issue with the Olympus, the card it uses is an xD card, and guess what, all of my card readers do to take that format, and the USB socket is not a standard size, so a bit of research to do to get the images off. Looking at them on the LCD display on the back of the camera they look OK, so maybe for another blog.

Had a walk around the abbey at night, even though no tripod, i think the night time shot came out OK. Used one of the drama settings in Snapseed to bring it out and lift it.

Inside the Abbey there was display of glass baubles with messages on, so had been smashed on the floor to add to the display.

So the next day the weather was better so we headed of to Prior Park, about a 30 minute walk outside of the city centre. This is a National Trust property, no house to go in but the parkland is open for visitors. Well worth the visit, and the final few images for this blog, until i get the images of the Olympus.

Enjoy.

April 17, 2016 1

A day out at the Photography Show 2016

So that time of year again, a day out at the Photography Show 2016. Comparing it to last year, there seemed a better vibe to the day, and first impressions was that it was a better show. As I wandered around, my first thoughts turned out to be right. The layout was better, and the sessions that I attended were full, there was a lot of people there, however, as in previous years, the technical gremlins were out, in full force. This is a constant issue whenever I go to the show, and one year, they might get it right and produce an tech error free zone…..might be asking for too much.

There where also to be a few more demonstrations taking place on the stand, particularly on the studio lighting displays. I watched a few of these, and picked up some useful techniques for the future, just need to put them into practice.

I was impressed with the catwalk show put on by the Photoshoot Magazine. The make up on the models was superb, my favourite was the ‘Steam Punk’. He really played his role well, a few images are below.

The ‘walking dead’ character was also very impressive…..

All in all, a very good show, much improved from last year. They have set the bar high, this one will take some beating, looking forward to my visit in 2017.

March 27, 2016 0

A very early morning

I must be mad. Set the alarm for 03:45 this morning to take part in an event organised by the Photography Show 2016 with the help of Steve Walton.

Did seem strange driving along the M6 with no traffic, with a choice of lanes to use, first time for everything..

The event was to take photos of the dawn sun as it rose over the ‘beach’ at Pendigo Lake in the grounds of the National Exhibition Centre just outside Birmingham, the venue of the Photography Show.

So there i was was, with about 20 other souls who had got up waiting for the sun, only to be disappointed as the cloud cover failed in a very English way, hung on.So all we managed were a few shots of the new Resorts World. Fortunately the weather stayed calm and teh reflection on the lake slight rippled.

I have put in a couple of images from the shot, no off to bed to catch up on the ‘missing hours’.

Off to the show on Monday, so will have some images and thoughts on eh day in my next blog…enjoy.

March 20, 2016 0

An Evening with…. Emilie

I recently had the chance to work with a local model, Emilie Walt. I have worked with her before, these either being location shoots (local car parks in the Jewellery Quarter) or a dance evening, so this was something different. A more relaxed studio shoot with the chance to move the lights were needed and the opportunity to move Emilie into the various moods and shoot that I was after.

A lot of images where taken on the night and these are interspersed throughout this blog.

Emilie, as ever, is a great person to work with, and knows how to move herself for the result that you are trying to achieve. She is simply superb..

Thank you Emilie

March 6, 2016 0

An afternoon with……Ruby

A first for me. I was recently asked to do shot a little girls, Ruby, first birthday cake smash. After a quick think, I thought, why not, something different and it helps to broaden the portfolio and get the creative juices flowing.

First step was to do some research on the net, YouTube was a great place, lots of helpful videos, particularly when it came to backdrops. I soon realised that my material backdrop would not be very practical, so off to the local stockist for a paper background. All the information on line suggested going for a bright yellow, which I thought why not, keep it bright and not glitzy. There came the first issue, the car friendly lengths of 2 meters do not come in yellow, so a 3 meter roll was purchased, after I had checked that it would fit in the car, the staff at the Flash Centre in Birmingham were very helpful, with the back seats dropped and wedged into the front passenger well. All was OK.

So on the day of the shoot, I loaded up the car, with backdrop filling up most of the space and just had room to get the camera, flash heads, lighting stands and the backdrop stands. There was just space to get myself in the drivers seat and away…..

Setting up was straight forward and I decided to only use one flash head with a soft-box on it, keeping the light fairly low.

Got the images first of the cake on its own, all intact and Ruby, before the carnage started.

Now came the fun, Ruby , at first was not the slightest bit interested on smashing the cake, but kept walking around it and coming up to me to look into the lens. After some encouragement, she soon got the hand of it and started the smash in earnest. Only issue was that now with gooey cake on her fingers she was trying to share it with me, and the camera lens. Not a good result but being quick on my feet, I managed to avoid any sticky mishaps.

At the best part of all, using the paper background left the clean up very quick, cut if off, fold it up and dispose of in the rubbish bin, great.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a few hours, will certainly do it again and the research on the web paid off.

I have put a few images form the day in the post and hope that if anybody reads the post they enjoy them, I did……

And if anybody is wondering this was how the cake looked when we had finished…..Tip,if doing this, get a cheap cake…

February 25, 2016 0

An evening with…. A bowl of M&M’s

With the weather being absolutely awful the UK, not much chance to get out of a weekend, whether photography related or just for a walk in the countryside, it was time to get the old photo mags out and have a look to see what I could do at home with minimal kit.

After looking through them i chanced across an article where they were taking images of a bowl of smarties using glycerine,a macro lens, piece of glass, tripod and a desk lamp.

Great, got all of these except the smarties, but a quick trip to the local supermarket and a bag of M&M’s where in the basked through the checkout and back home in no time at all.

The set-up was quite straight forward, the tricky pats was making sure that the glass was absolutely clean with no grease stains, finer marks, stray hairs were present.Any of these needed to be cleaned off.

After that it was just setting up the bowl with the M&M’s on the table, the sheet of glass above it, supported on each side by a few books. then drops of glycerine on the glass and then set the camera up on a tripod with the desk lamp positioned off to side. Then, just started playing with how close to put the camera, how many drops ro put on and changing the focal point, aperture and speed to suit.

It was a great way to spend a few hours, better than getting wet, got some great images, and the best bit, got bowl of M&M’s to eat when everything was tided up.

Well worth doing, and i will be doing this again trying out different props, ant mixing them up, maybe jellie babies and liquorice allsorts.

February 7, 2016 0

An evening with….Mark Hadon

Recently had an evening session in the studio with local part time model Mark Hadon. Mark, by day, is a teacher in a local school, and as you can see from the images, really looks after himself.

Mark was great to work with, adept at most poses that he was asked to perform, and some of them was quite hard on his body, despite the rippling muscles.

He even brought his own kit to use…….

Well, he didn’t bring the tyre, that was in the studio.

It was a great night, Mark was so easy to work with and has a great personality.

Mark Hadon

Hopefully I shall be working with Mark in the near future.

January 31, 2016 0