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.

Nina "No Alcohol Required"

My most recent shoots with Nina who I am so grateful to for giving me her time and being when she was so reluctant to be photographed the first time. I think she is starting to enjoy herself !! So much so that 'no alcohol required' is her new motto.

We ventured out to a nearby wooded area on which was probably one of the warmest days we have had for a few weeks, poor Nina in boots, heavy shirt, velvet jacket and hat. Yes all from my wardrobe...can't you tell? We also abandonded the black eyes this time, needs more attention or a real make-up artist!

The final images are from the black eye day, shot at home. I moved most of my furniture out of the living room so that we had some space, although not enough. The main aim of the day was to photograph my new hat (can be found at Flickr) and a vintage woollen swimsuit from the thirties, below...

I always feel once I have posted to Flickr that I have'nt posted the best image from a shoot and that should I post more or are they too similar? I don't want to bore people but then I want to show that I have been doing something. Maybe I should just wait a bit longer in the editing period before I post.

Little People Big Spaces

So on to photographing a couple of small people, Mia and Joni. We decided against studio/plain white background and went for location shots. These included shooting at their home on the first session and then venturing out to our local lodges (soon to be the Weir Nature Reserve!!) for a spot of greenery on the second session.

The freedom Mia had at the lodges created so many images that whilst many may appear very similar each one offers something different. I also find something very appealing about a child turned away from the viewer. Who have they seen or what are they looking for.

Since the wedding I have started using both my cameras on a shoot so that I am not having to swap lenses and perhaps break momentum. Thing run much smoother apart from the odd chance of self strangulation.

Summer Time has the living been easy?

Where has it gone? Half way through August and it feels as though I have done jack (not the Spedding variety !)

So here is a bit of a catch up. From the begining of the end of the first year I have been continuously fretting about the summer assignment-what to do, who to annoy, where to go etc, and it all seems to no avail. The fretting continues.

I have done a few commissions as those who peruse Flickr may have noticed or not!

The first took place towards the end of June. But actually began with a phone call at 4am whilst I was in New York over the Christmas period. An old school friend had found out about my photography degree course and was requesting I photograph her wedding. On my return and at a more humane time, we met up and agreed details of the day. Rachel agreed to be the second photographer.

It was a fairly low pressured affair and so far has been my favorite wedding to photograph. Not too many guests 80-100, a beautiful venue and a fabulous day weather wise.

However and this applies to any job, the stress of whether or not you got THE images and will they be happy with your interpretation of their day/child/event is tremendous. This I hope will decrease with time and experience. Or else I am just a stresshead and this will never change. Hopefully there will come a time when my style is evident and that is what people will request.

Evaluation

The end of my first blog and all things considered (me being a technophobe, not liking things I do to be public knowledge etc) I will deem it a sucess!

It has forced me to work in a different manner to my usual form which is to keep everything I do, notes, research, images and working practice and then put it in the journal together. Should I have admitted that? Anyway through this manner I have posted everything within a day or so (depending on editing) of producing images. I have tried not to waffle on too much, and make it a bit of an interesting read!

I have produced a wide variety of images, from both film and digital technology and hopefully have incorporated a cross-section of portraits, as befits the brief. Having said that, looking at my final selection there appears to be a greater number of close-up portraits and indeed numerous self-portraits. But I suppose it shows continuity! Also the excessive number of self-portraits are, as explained earlier due to the fact that I am a willing candidate to practice lighting on.

The main thing this brief has brought home is the importance of planning when shooting people, especially where the Leeds shoot was concerned, if we had not had the first day to plan I feel our success rate would have dropped dramatically. Where I may have failed in the blog is not posting all my research and editing practice, I felt this was unneccessary as much of it can be found in my 'Systems and Processes' file.

To finish on a high, I feel I have been prolific in my work, my editing skills have improved, both digitally and in the darkroom, even in the short period from the last brief of 'Objects', and I have thouroughly enjoyed the brief.

Winding Down

Not much more to go up here as it's coming to a close, less than a week to go. So my final images are a couple taken in America over Christmas with my Mamiya and the others from the fashion shoot in Leeds taken on Holga. (all are scans of negs)

Both the American images are shot from the hip and as part of people at rest. I wanted to capture the subjects unaware, immersed in their own world, separated from those around them by music, books or simply their thoughts.

The first image will be included in my final portfolio as a hand print.

Always a bit hit or miss with the holga, I didn't try anything outrageous here, just straight shots using available lighting and I'm satisfied with the results. (Played with brightness/contrast in CS3.)

After The Storm

A brief respite after the shoot, prior to the editing, to collect our thoughts and evaluate what we achieved over the last three days. As mentioned Tuesday was a planning day so we met Susan at Leeds Art and Design building, had a chat over coffee about the location:

http://www.shineinharehills.co.uk/home.asp and a quick look at some images of the garments we were to photograph.

After making a trip to Shine we got down to trying to split the designs into groups, where we thought they would best be shot, if accessories were required etc. It was then broken down to hourly sections so that we had a schedule to work to, well try and work to!

We also decided to have lights set up in the room that had been hired as base camp so that we had the option of plain background if needed.

Wednesday we had two female and one male model and Thursday the two females. Six male outfits, thirty-two female. Over the two days we shot over two thousand images, we decided on shooting both location and plain background for each garment so that Susan had more options for her final images. We both shot on Johns camera and for the main shot 50mm.

Many of the garments lacked inspiration when on the hanger, but once on the model both John, Susan and I had ideas for what would fit the look and hopefully this has been achieved in the final images.

I think John and I worked well together, taking inspiration and creating new ideas from each other. Also when watching whilst someone else shoots, you see things from a different angle which they may miss.

Stressful? Yes but not headache stress, achievement stress.

DON'T PANIC!!!!

Bank Holiday Monday and all's quiet..... well not really as John M and myself are off to Leeds Uni tomorrow to do a reccy for a fashion shoot taking place over Wed and Thurs. Tomorrow is all about the planning!!! Today is about have we got everything and do we know what we are doing????

We have been looking at various people for inspiration and ideas including http://www.rankin.co.uk/portfolio/fashion

and http://www.thomastreuhaft.com/Tim_Walker/tw.html

Alongside this I have been viewing

http://community.livejournal.com/foto_decadent/?skip=20

for personal ideas. A couple of favorites:

Vogue Italia 1999: Paolo Roversi

Tiberius by Chadwick Tyler

This week I have been putting together a varied selection of possibles for my final portfolio for both my 'People' and 'Personal Management' assignments. All the images have been taken over the past four-five months with the intention of use in the people journal/blog.

Some have been shot specifically i.e. The Face, People at wok or rest etc, whilst some have been experimental (most of the self portraits) and have been deemed successful enough to be included.

I have created contact sheets of all the shots looked at and have highlighted the potential final images in red whilst possibles are highlighted in yellow. (This was done by myself and JH)If anyone would like to disagree and advise altenatives please do. There is no order to the contact sheets, for some reason CS3 decided this was the way to create them!

The majority of my images have been on display on here or Flickr, although there are a few unseen ones.

Couples

Last week we were given a live brief. Placed in groups of three or four we were each assigned an area of Blackburn, and a certain demographic to photograph. Our group was to photograph couples in the Cathedral Square.

Not a bad area on a sunny afternoon, although there were more groups of youths hanging around than couples. As we walked around I shot three couples, two of which were more than happy to oblige (top two images) and the third, the youngest couple who agreed but were nervous and wanted to escape after two shots.

This couple knew the people Craig was photographing and were willing for me to shoot them. They were fine when I asked them to move slightly because there was a tree emerging from her head and they were very relaxed and engaged in banter with me as we took the photos.

The second couple were sat enjoying the sun with their baby and were very accommodating when I said the baby couldn't be included. We took shots with and without the sunglasses, this is my preferred image.

As mentioned this is the youngest and most nervous couple from my afternoon, and I think this shows somewhat in the image. There is an akwardness to them, (mainly the male) both with me and each other.

After obtaining the shots we had to do a quick edit and post one each to a new group on Flickr. I didn't find this task too daunting as throughout my working life I have had to communicate with strangers and don't usually get a bad response. Although once whilst trying to entice new members into the gym I worked at one lady took great offence and claimed I was saying she was fat. (she made Kate Moss look overweight so you work it out!)

Never Work With Children or Animals!

How could I refuse to work with something so cute? I know I said only puppies were cute but......

Even whilst she was very upset Jasey (above) looks adorable, and I had my child entertainer with me so everything turned out well. What on earth am I on about and how did it happen? Before Christmas I was asked to do some portraits of Jasey and her mum, but unfortunatley Jasey was very ill and it was all put on hold. When Vicky (I know..another one!) her mum got in touch the portraits had increased to include more of the family. There would be a total of seven in some of the photographs.

Easter Monday I went and met Vicky and did a reccy of the house where I would be shooting. A terraced house with an ok size living room, the request was for plain white background which would mean setting up my backdrop.

On the day I took Taff as my assistant to help erect the backdrop and lights etc. He did a fine job and is now in my employment, well something like that.

So why is Jasey crying???? She had just woken up and was presented with the Wicked Witch of the West and Coco the Clown in her front room, so wouldn't you?

I began photographing and eventually with a bit of interaction from Coco, Jasey calmed down and was happy to mull around, play with toys, pushing Tigger over and dropping things for Coco seemed her favorite!

Quick outfit change, a spot of dancing ...

and her two cousins were included in the shoot. Farah on the left, Fletcher on the right, Heffalump(I think) Pooh and Tiggerrrr with their faces pushed in the floor.

Easily entertained by bouncing on the toys and being fascinated by Coco.

Now I have a stack of images to edit and present to the family for then to purchase.