26 August 2010

Making babies cry



I'm normally quite good at making babies cry.  On look at me with my camera and they're away.  Thankfully with this little one the tears only lasted a few seconds after which she gave me a hard time chasing her around while I tried, and very nearly failed to get her to stand still enough to have her photo taken.

24 August 2010

Having the tables turned on me...



It's normally me who gets to photograph the pretty girls, but yesterday I had the tables turned on me and it was a pretty girl who got to photograph me.

There was a time, not so long ago, where I used to shy from the camera, and hated having my picture taken, but now, it's actually kind of fun.

I was introduced to new photographer Jennalise Kassanis through a client of mine, and we met up for a bit of a chit chat yesterday about all things photography.  We had a walk around Netley Abbey, and snapped a few photos of each other.  It's not often I'll recommend another photographer on my blog, but I have to say I am really happy with the photos Jennalise took of me.

Thanks J!  It was fun!

An odd favourite image from a shoot



I spent all afternoon shooting with the wonderfully talented gymnasts Senga & Jess, and I'm almost ashamed to admit that this is my favourite photo from our shoot.

It was a moment of silliness from Jess that inspired the shot, but I like it.

Real pictures from the shoot coming later...

23 August 2010

American Curves



The latest copy of American Curves Magazine landed on my doormat this morning. Although it's been a while since they used any of my photos, I'm happy to say my name is still listed as one of the photographers.  As you can see from the names above, I'm in some very good company indeed.  I'm rather proud to be one of the few photographers they use who is not based in North America.

I really want to change the fact that I've not been in there for a while, and I'm already planning a few shoots in Las Vegas to do just that.

I'm always looking for American Curves quality models to shoot, more so here in England, but also in the USA in September and October.

What do you need to be to be an American Curves model?  In no particular order, because they're all very important.

Confidence (Curves uses lots of butt shots, so thong bikinis etc is a must), a great figure, a good all over tan, you need to be able to do lots of different facial expressions, you need to be able to freely pose yourself...

I've probably missed something.  If you have some creative ideas to bring to the shoot, then our chances will only get better.

I should add, that although I sometimes do shoots for submission to American Curves, it is no guarantee of actually getting accepted by the magazine and published.  I know what they want, and I know how to shoot it, but the final decision of who gets in is in the hands of  Bob Kennedy and Rico Marques.

16 August 2010

A fitness & gymnastic photoshoot in the New Forest



It's been 4 years since my last shoot with the lovely Senga & Jess.  Hard to believe it's been that long, I was still in regular employment back then.  Scary how quickly time passes.

We went to a couple of locations around the New Forest, and got some fun jumping, gymnastic & general bendy shots.

Anyways, enjoy a few of my favourites from the shoot...

14 August 2010

Pants, Girls, & Cupcakes!



Cupcakes and pretty girls wearing pants.  Does a shoot get any better than this?

The shoot was for Becky, the boss of Southampton based company whomadeyourpants?.   When I met with Becky to discuss the shoot a couple of weeks prior I made the suggestion to get see if Heidi at Cherry On The Cake might be interested in having some of her wonderful cupcakes incorporated into the shoot.

She was, and the dream shoot was on!

What with me being a bit rubbish at remembering names I had to call the models by the colour of the pants they were wearing, so we had red (Aimee), purple (Faye), black (Leanne), and the late comer, bump (Zan - because she is 7 months pregnant and was also wearing purple pants!).

A quick mention also to the pant designer and my reflector holder for the afternoon, Emma, and also to stylist Anna.  It was a pleasure to meet and work with all of you!

11 August 2010

Avro Lancaster PA474



The Avro Lancaster PA474 at last weekends RAF Lyneham Airshow was running about 15 minutes late, and there was a dirty big black rain cloud coming in so I was a little worried the Lancaster might have to postpone, or that the rain would come and it would be too wet to take photos.

The Lancaster arrived 3-4 minutes before the rain storm arrived.  We'd lucked out.  We had to run for cover shortly before the end of its display, but we'd seen it.

I remember when I was little my Dad had made me an Airfix model of a Lancaster that was hanging for my bedroom ceiling for years, it was probably the first plane I actually knew the name of.

Green fields

10 August 2010

Cow

Sheep

Extreme photo tour / workshop in Devon



It wasn't advertised as an extreme photo workshop, but that's what it evolved into.  However I'm getting ahead of myself.

This was the second of my photo workshops, and the first in Devon.   Everyone met, and indeed most people were staying for a few days at Steve Lundy's lovely Home Farm Hotel & Restaurant.  There were 5 photo tourers (Pete, Sheila, Denise, Ryan & Peter), myself, and our driver and tour guide Russ Hewer from Tailored Tours UK.

After we'd established the level of humour everyone was at by Denise suggesting my Little Black Book of Scantily Clad Women should have wipe clean pages (if you don't get it, I'm not explaining it!), we enjoyed a lovely meal cooked up by Home Farm's master chef Dennis.

Our first stop was Haldon Belvedere (Lawrence Castle) where we had a slightly breathless climb to the top of the hill from the carpark, and then an even harder climb up to the top of the tower.  The views were fab, but the weather was not in our favour, the cloud cover was making everything look kind of bland and uninteresting.

After a quick stop at a pretty stone bridge over a river the next proper stop was in the village of Chagford.  It was maybe the most important stop of the day because it was time for a Devon cream tea.  What a tea it was.  We found a cute little tea place, and had the most amazing scones (still warm), clotted cream (heart attack think) and strawberry jam.  It was just perfect.

With everyone on a sugar high we hit the road again, this time heading onto Dartmoor proper with the aim of finding somewhere cool to photograph the sunset from.

We stopped next at Postbridge Clapper.  This is a bridge which is older than the earth itself (this may or may not be true).

While we were driving everyone in the car was shouting out whenever we saw, "SHEEP", "HORSE", "COW", or "CAR!!!" (when one was heading straight for us down a single track road).  We almost lost Ryan on a couple of occasions due to him nearly choking himself to death on his own laughter.

With a little bit of help from an old fashioned map, and a little bit of guess work we worked our way around some tiny single track lanes, almost breaking Russ's car on several occasions, until finally the roads stopped and the dirt tracks took over.  This is where the extreme photo tour started.  In Russ's specially prepared 2 wheel drive Ford (driven over 400,000 miles) Galaxy we ventured onwards up this track that even a 4x4 owner would have thought twice at.  A hundred metres and several shrieks of "we're all going to die!" later we decided it was probably best to stop and walk the rest of the way to the top of the tor.

Most of the group elected to climb the 10 minutes to the top of the tor.  I decided to stay by the car.  Why?  I'm too fat to climb / I'm too lazy to climb / My camera bag has wheels but wasn't going to roll over rocks very well / I thought I'd get better sunset photos where I was / To keep Denise company (delete as applicable).

The grey clouds had started to break a couple of hours before sunset, and with an hour to go I had a feeling we were in for a treat.  I wasn't wrong.  The sunset was one of the best I've seen in England.

The drive back to Home Farm was a bit of a trek.  We missed getting food at a Little Chef by just 45 seconds (which some might say is a blessing in disguise), and ended up stopping at Burger King on the M5 services.  They short changed me and only gave me 12 of their tasteless stupidly tiny chicken ball things instead of 14, but we'd eaten.

Back at the hotel everyone headed to their rooms and to bed, while Russ and myself both faced a 2 hour drive home.  On the plus side there was no traffic on the roads at midnight.

It had been a special day.  Thank you to everyone involved.  Photography doesn't get more fun than that.


Must concentrate.


A rare photo of the lesser spotted Sheila.


A long way down.


Russ trying to figure out where we are.


A sheep and my pupils up on the tor.


A self portrait of my legs.

09 August 2010

A perfect Devon sunset



A sunset from somewhere in the depths of Dartmoor in Devon.

It was a perfect sunset.

Note:  I know my logo is too big in these photos, I'll be making it smaller soon.

Getting up close and personal with the Avro Vulcan XH558



I was invited to the RAF Lyneham Families day by a friend who works there (thanks Kev!) on Saturday.  The highlight of the day and the only thing I wanted to be sure of getting some good photos of was the only flying Avro Vulcan left in the world.

A few weeks ago I didn't know anything about the Vulcan.  That was until while having a pub lunch in Oxfordshire I looked up and saw it in the sky.  The friends I was with identified it as the Vulcan, and quickly looked it up online to discover it was flying to do a display at The Goodwood Festival of Speed.

At that same time I was told that one of the people I was following on Twitter, Anthony Lloyd (http://twitter.com/FallowfieldsUK) actually used to fly the thing.

With a little inside knowledge of the airbase from Kev, we were able to find our way to the end of the runway where the Vulcan would be taking off from.  It was like having a backstage pass for a concert, I felt so privileged.

Just as the Vulcan rolled around the corner towards the runway an RAF Police officer pulled up.  Bugger we thought, we were going to be asked to move.  We were in luck, he was as interested in getting to see the Vulcan as we were.

The noise this beast made while flying was just amazing.  There was one point during its ten minute display where I'm guessing it went to full throttle.  It put out this noise that was other worldly, I've never heard anything like it before.  Simply amazing.

While we were hanging around photographing some of the other displays, the Vulcan made its way to the Bournemouth Airshow, only to return and land right in front of us about 40 minutes later.

It was a very special day indeed.

Update:  Apparently the Vulcan went to Swanage and not Bournemouth.

04 August 2010

Another photo from Portland Bill



Yes, this photo was taken this way up.  Yes Sally really is that strong!

03 August 2010

A handstand & general bendy photoshoot at Portland Bill



I wanted to wait for Sally to send me her favourite images from the shoot, but I didn't have the patience so here are a couple of my early favourites from the shoot.

If you've seen the video, you'll know that Sally was indeed brave / stupid (delete as applicable) enough to climb up onto Pulpit Rock (Portland Bill) and do handstands on it.  It would have probably been very easy (not to mention safer) to photoshop Sally on top of the rock, but that would be cheating.  One thing with all my photos you see on my blog and portfolio is that none of them have been got at with photoshop.  They are what they are, no cheating involved.

02 August 2010

Fitness & Dance Photoshoot at Portland Bill



Last week I had the pleasure of working with two wonderful models in Portland Bill.  The first of which was Elena.   Models who have dance training make for some of the best models, they know how to move and create beautiful shapes for the camera.  Elena was one of the best I've worked with, and I love some of the jump / dance photos we did.

The shoot was ended prematurely by a dirty great big grey cloud spoiling our light, but we'd done most of what we wanted to do, and I'm really happy with the results.

01 August 2010

Behind the scenes video of a location photoshoot



A few days ago I was doing a shoot at Portland Bill (one of my favourite locations) with model Sally Miller.  I had help from with lighting, video, and general piss taking from Karl (hairy biker), Paul, Carla (hairy bikers friend).

Photos from the shoot will be coming soon, but for now, please enjoy this video.

It was a fun shoot.  Thank you to everyone.

Special thanks go to Cosmic Picnic for letting me use one of their rather cool tunes.