An afternoon in Birmingham

Just a few weeks ago I was at the media launch of the new Birmingham Conservatoire, now the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

This is the new home of the music school of Birmingham City University, the old one being demolished as part of the Paradise Circus rejuvenation works.

Living my DSLR at home, I used my mobile phone for the afternoon, easy to carry and less intrusive.

The Conservatoire consists of one main concert hall, one purpose built Jazz space, a recital hall, organ room and a project space, in addition to countless rehearsal and practice rooms scattered around the building.

The interior of the building is impressive and is a high standard, this is just the first class facility that the city needs. Looking forward to seeing it well used, and visiting myself as a customer, looking forward to watching some Jazz, and sampling their new beer.

October 16, 2017 0

A day with Phase One

A short while ago I was lucky to attend an event organised by the Flash Centre at a local studio in Worcester. The event was a hand on session with the latest Phase One camera, the impressive sounding IQ3 100MP Trichromatic, rather a mouth full.

After a talk by the product manager from Phase One explaining all of the new features, we managed to get our hand on them, not quite a scrum but a well organised wait, typically English.

Not having used a Phase One camera before, the weight of the unit took me by surprise, a very heavy beast, can see why they are used in studio and on tripods, you would not want to carry one of the beasts around taking holiday snaps….

The camera itself, was very easy to use, no manuals on hand but a after a few minutes of pressing the buttons on the top, soon got used to the controls.

Was very nice using it at 1/2000’s with the studio lights firing and no black bar evident in the images.

So on to the shoot, there were different situations already set up, one was a Lamborghini, very nice and as you can image, the queue to use the cameras in this area was long, so after grabbing a few shots with my phone, I based myself in the studio where a couple of motor bikes had been set up. Much less hassle and I was able to take my time and walk around and get up close.

A great morning, and the camera well impressive, would I like one, simple answer, yes, can i afford one, no, can i justify one, no, but one has to have dreams and aspirations.

Enjoy a few images from the day.

October 9, 2017 0

An evening with Marra

So another post from me. Continuing the thread of my last two posts, here are some more portrait shot of local model Marra. These were all taken in the studio some using using a single soft box on her right and a white board on the right to bounce back the light.

And before anybody asks/send abusive mail etc. the coat was faux fur. There are still some more images to process, still find it difficult to put time aside for editing. Think a time management session is needed, or more hours in the day…

October 2, 2017 0

New Model

OK, so she is not a real model, but in fact my granddaughter. I was trying out a few ideas, and well she was there. For a nine year old she is very thoughtful, and even though i am very obviously biased, gorgeous.

Hope you like the images. all natural light and processed using Silver Efex.

The paper, if you are wondering, was the Sunday Times…..

July 13, 2017 0

A day with the animals

A few years ago I was able to attend a photo shoot at small cats wildlife centre in Hertfordshire.

Not having done this before it was a new adventure and hopefully new skills to add, as well as good images.

The format of the day was to stay with the tutor and listen, take the advice and then get the shoots.

One of the main benefits of doing a shoot like this with no members of the general public about is that you are allowed to ‘go beyond the first line’. So being behind this you are up close to the cage. That extra metre makes a hell of a difference, if you felt the urge you could have put your hand into the enclosure, would have come out with a few fingers missing, so was not tempted to do this.

Being so close enabled me to eliminate the bars of the cage, resulting in a more out in the wild feel to the pictures. Still being mindful that if they wanted to, they could still do damage to you or the equipment.

It was a very good day, with some great experience, if anybody was thinking about attending one of these, then go for it, you will not be disappointed.

Anyway, just a few images from the day are below, enjoy…..

April 27, 2017 0

An evening in Strangetown………

On Monday night I attended the opening night of a new studio in Birmingham. Housed in the old Telsen Radio building, Strangetown ( a Jam track) offers some very atmospheric locations from goods lift that come complete with grunge effect, staircases and industrial areas.

The resident model, Lady-Emilie Walt was lined up a few hours passed both in the studio and locations through the building.

Below are just a few images of Emilie from the night. Look forward to doing more shoots there in the future.

April 12, 2017 0

It’s been a while

It’s been a while since I posted, life seems to have got in the way and somewhere posting took a backseat, thinking that I will post tomorrow, but that day never seemed to come around, till today. Its been quiet on the photography front, so here is a few from a studio shoot I did a while ago.

Must make more of an effort and try to post on a regular basis, and try some new techniques.

One thing to look forward to is the Photography Show at the NEC next weekend. Ticket have arrived and I am all set. If it is anything like the last few show, it should be a good one, post will follow.

March 12, 2017 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

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