A few more from Leeds

Ayesha:

                                         

                                      

leeds fashion

Peacefully Green

As part of an advertising brief I went to Preston to meet with a Greenpeace group for a chat and to take some portraits. I went along with a fellow student Scott and whilst there an older gentleman came into the room the meeting was being held. Immediately Scott and I looked at each other confirming we needed to try and get his portrait. Whilst I was capturing the Greenpeace members, Scott went and asked the gentleman if he wouldn't mind having his photograph taken as well. At first reluctant he then agreed (always knew I had a winning smile) and came outside. He kept asking what I wanted him to do, if he could smoke etc, but i feel he knew exactlt what to do...

He said to call him 'The Preston Poet' and here he is.

My latest set of portraits, carried out with the aid of the Lauren. I have been photographing Nina so much I decided to try and bag me another model! Lauren has platinum blonde hair and commented that it would be changing colour very soon so I asked if I could capture her prior to this, and in connection with my WBL... portraits.

The shoot took place at my house and was purely portraits. Lauren is a beauty therapist so applied her own make-up and I asked her to wear black as the images would be either black & white or sepia.

It was Lauren's first time modeling and as with Nina this is evident in the first few frames. However not long into it and she was feeling more comfortable and relaxed.

We shot for about an hour and I feel there are many suitable images. (one way I mark a successful shot is when the person uses one of the images as their buddy icon online!!)

All The Small Things

So my previous shoot of Mia and Jonie must have been a success as I was asked to photograph one of their friends children.....

Used the same tactic as before, begin shooting at the home so that they are in familiar surroundings and if this was unsucessful we had a nearby location to go to that had more space.



Balloons seem to be a winner with children, until the nasty sharp blades of grass catch them, BANG, or is it POP? and we nearly have tears. So out comes another one, and the corner of a wall strikes, BANG, the slight jump and semblance of tears again...



The time produced plenty of opportunity for good images of Edie so re-location was not neccessary.

However I didn't produce as many images of Nancy (above) with her not being at the mobile stage of life yet.(But I think we got enough)


Postscript: one new skill is emerging from this, I am becoming quite adept at shooting and blowing up a balloon!

Thanks to Cassie I have just shot my first nude (excluding self) and it has been another learning curve. At the start I had some kind of idea of what I was trying to achieve, no really I did! and the room we were working in is east facing and has nice light in the morning/lunch-time. I must say though that when I did some self-portraits it was mid-summer, very early in the morning and the light was gorgeous, casting an amazing shadow across the bed which would have been good to catch again. Alas that was one of our last decent days of summer.

So as you can probably tell I wasn't after sharp focus, lots of detail, I like the blur and slight movement caught with a longer exposure.

Once again there are a few more images from the day on my Flickr page.

Jonny Be Good

Shoot from last week, Jon my neighbour agreed for me to photograph him as I have been asked by a male friend to take some portfolio shots for him. I used Jon to try and get some ideas.

Taken at home (I don't get out much!!) so had use of lights, we rearranged the furniture, well piled it up in a corner, and used my longest wall in the room for the background. This caused less problems than when I shot Nina in front of the curtains, more width to play with. Also this time had Taff at home who acted as assistant which made life much easier. Once he got the hang of moving a light a tad and not three feet it was plain sailing. Having that extra pair of hands to hold a reflector instead of me utilizing my toes made a world of difference.