Lindos – Golden Dawn

Hi guys,

As ever I’m always very conscious of the fact that I need to maintain diversity and ultimately visual stimulas within the blog so i thought that a nice colourful landscape shot would be beneficial to this aim.

I don’t know if you can remember, but I have just recently returned from a well deserved holiday to Greece. I stayed in a small picturesque resort called Pefki, which is on the island of Rhodes and very close to the historic town of Lindos.

As soon as I arrived at the apartment, I was itching to get out with the camera and so i began going through my ‘just arrived on holiday routine’ which is working out where sunset / sunrise will be, where the sea is, what other interesting photpgraphic locations are in the area, what time sunset / sunrise is, checking all my camera gear, cleaning lenses….you get the picture!

So, at four am on the first morning, whilst nursing a hangover (too much Pernod) I make my way to the taxi which I’ve booked to take me accross to the other side of the island where I will wait for the sunrise….and once there I wait. And wait. And wait. And then realise that I’m still on UK time and have arrived two hours early. And the headache continues….

There I am sat on top of this massive cliff, in total darkness waiting for the sun to rise. As bad as this sounds it was really cool, as I had some really nice ballearic house music on the mp3, and so i lay back and watched the stars…awesome!

As dawn began to break I carefully negotiated my way down to the cliff edge, which required scrambling over razor sharp volcanic rock in nothing but my converse, but after 30 minutes of grazed flesh I made it to the bottom and captured this shot:

A nice big version can be viewed HERE

In hindsight, I’m really annoyed with myself for not taking more photos which could be used as a story board, illustrating my little adventures. I’m off to Weston-super-Mare this afternoon to shoot backgrounds for an upcoming portrait session and so I’ll take more photos to capture the day in general….

Until next time!

Take a View – Highly Commended

Hi guys,

Some more fab news for you all, the Take a View – Landscape Photographer of the Year awards have been announced, and I’m very pleased to say that my photo which can be viewed here, was highly commended.

Whilst I’m obviously dissapointed that my shot didn’t win, I’m still very pleased, as the photo will be included in the Take a View book, and will be exhibited at the National Theatre in London, between the following dates 5th December 2009 – 24th January 2010, so if you’re in the area pop along for a look! I may also win some prize money, which would be an added bonus!

I’ve mentioned before that I commute from Cheltenham to Bristol on a daily basis, and whilst this is a pain, it does offer me a good 1 hour of peace and quiet during which time I contemplate photography ideas and scout out new locations.

Whilst trundling down the motorway, I noticed these little brick huts in the middle of a field, and immediately the image below popped into my head. I seem to have been blessed with quite an over active imagination and I get such a buzz out of visualising an image an image and then seeing the final product on screen, pretty much as it was first envisaged.

Anyway, I seem to be going through quite a dark phase with my photography, I’m not entirely sure why this is but regardless I’m really pleased with the results I’m getting…i do promise a more uplifting photo next time!

A bigger version can be viewed here

Just for your viewing pleaseure / displeasure, below is a close up of the figure in the doorway:

I deliberately wanted to create an unsettling shot, and hopefully i’ve acheived this. It’s my intention to print the photo at 16″ x 12″, and at this size you won’t be able to quite make out the strange details of the figure in the doorway, just to unnerve the viewer a touch more!

I would love to hear your comments on this shot!

Until next time….

The Teddy Boy

Hi folks,

I can’t quite believe it, Sunday afternoon and I’m making a blog post…on time!

since making my last post i’ve been pretty busy editing photos, and I haven’t even started on all the shots taken on holiday, so i’mm sure they will just be added to the backlog! I’m nott complaining though, it’s always nice to have a good stock pile for the blog and portfolio.

I always winge about not having a supply of models, and to get around this I often rely on members of the public. In principle, you may think that the public offer an inexhaustible source of material, however it’s not that easy…not for me anyway.

If you’re a traditional photographer, then the above assumption would be quite accurate, however for my style of work I’m really fussy about the subject material, and so to this extent I’m constantly filtering out people, looking for those folk who will look good with my style of processing. It’s really weird in that I don’t really know what it is i look for in a person, but when know as soon as I see it.

I spotted the subject of this photo working at a Tesco supermarket. So, the next time i was at the store I approached the individual (John), showed him a few examples of my work and asked if I could come back the following day to qquickly shoot him. Fortunately for me he agreed!

Johhn was a great subject, and despite the fact that the shoot only lasted about five minutes, and was done in a car park, the photos I captured were really good. All this was made even better on the basis that John was a natural in front of the camera, he didn’t need any prompting and just did his thing…which I thought was really cool!

The image below took me about two weeks to finish off in Photoshop, I don’t quite know why it took so long, I just struggled finilising the look i was after. Now that it is finished I’m really pleased with the results.

Anyway, i let you guys make up your own minds on it:

View this image nice and big here

The above shot was processed in Photoshop CS4. As ever, if anyone has any questions on my processing then please do not hesitate to ask!

Until next week…happy snapping

Heaven Gazing

Hi guys,

Apologies for the late post, I’ve been away for a few weeks on holiday, I should have said really but oh well! i have a few updates for you all with regards my recent competition submissions. Unfortunately I didn’t get anywhere with the Taylor Wessing Portrait competition, which is a real shame especially as I feel that my portraits have improved significantly…oh well! On the positive side, I have been contacted again by the judging panel at the Take a View competition (Landscape Photographer of the Year) and have been asked for a passage of text which would be used to accompany my photograph should it be published in the book of winners.

I wouldn’t have thought that they would ask me for text if they were not planning on publishing my photo so at the very least I’m hoping to get published in a mainstream book. I’m trying not to think about the possibility of winning the first prize of £10,000!

On another plus, I’ve also managed to secure a vacant shop unit in Cheltenham town centre for an exhibition of my work. The unit is located in a relatively new retail developmnet at a former brewery. The unit has remained vacant for a number of months now, and due to thr current recession i don’t think the complex owners are anticipating letting it out in the near future. Therefore to maintain visual interest within the complex, in conjunction with the local art gallery the unit is being used for the display of artwork. I’ve managed in booking the venue for a one month period starting on the 19th April 2010. Fingers crossed the unit will remain vacant until then!

Anyway, newsflash over!

I’ve recently had a few comments about the content of my blog along the lines that the photos are getting a tad too dark in nature. I must admit I hadn’t really noticed this, being to pre-occupied with my work! Anyway, to buck the trend and because I’m still in holiday mode, I thought I’d share a photo from my last holiday to Ibiza:

A nice big version can be viewed at the end of this link

I hope this shot injects a bit of much needed colour into the blog!

Thats enough from me for this week, until next time!

Android / Cyborg Relations

Hi guys,

I’m currently writing this post whilst stood in a very long que to enter an art exhibition. Details of this art exhibition will be fully disclosed in my next post. Anyway, the point is that there is a certain irony about how this post is being sent to you, as the delivery system forms the basis of this weeks post.

I am in fact using my new HTC Hero mobile phone, which utilises google’s Android operating system. I’m a massive fan of new technologies and this is often evident in the way I process my images, as I’m always testing out the latest software and techniques to achieve my style.

Anyway, I’m really impressed with my new  phone and what it can do, some of the applications are incredible and there is so, so much potential. I don’t want to harpe on too much, but check this. I have an application which, when I turn on the phones camera and look at the screen, this little application labels all the buildings, places of interest etc on the screen, in real time. It’s like terminator vision!

Anyway, the potenial is incredible and whilst thinking about this the little cogs in my brain which are responsible for dark photography ideas started turning and I came up with this:

This photo is best viewed nice and big HERE.

For those of you interested a lighting diagram for the above shot can be seen below. As you can see, the setup is pretty simple, and consisted purely of a strobe fired at 1/4 power through a shoot thr0ugh umbrella. Whenever I light a subject I try and keep the setup to a minimum, in order to give me a nice contrasty image to work with. In this case I wanted quite hard lighting so that’s why I just used a key light and no fill, as I didn’t want to open up the shadows.

Whilst the lighting setup was pretty simple, the post processing in the shot was not, and in the end took up about 75% of the entire project time. Not that I minded this of course as I had a blast putting the image together!

Anyway, that’s it for this post…until next time!

Socket

Hey hey hey! I’m getting better with my frequency of posts…only two days behind schedule! I do have a really good excuse; it was my thirtieth birthday over the weekend so there was quite a bit of celebrating to be done! I was planning on posting a landscape shot this week but as the weekend was all about me I thought that this week’s post should be as well!

There was a bit of a build up to this week’s shot and it started during my commute home from work. I have a 1 hour drive from the office to my flat, and during this time my mind invariably drifts to photography in one way or another. Last night’s drive home was no exception, and I soon found myself thinking about post processing portraits.

To give you a flavour, I stated wondering what would happen if you manipulated the lightness channel in LAB mode using a combination of selective colour channels and blending modes… …Wow I can hear you all gasp, “What could be the result of such crazy post processing?” Well, as soon as I made it home I set about my idea.

Unfortunately I soon realised that I didn’t have the right photo on my hard disk to work with so with the help of my Nikon tethered to my laptop, yours truly stepped into the breach! The results were not as I expected, but that’s the great thing about photoshop, it can be so unpredictable! Anyway after about 5 hours of post processing and a very late finish (I’ve said before I love post processing in complete darkness) I finished my shot below:

This image should be viewed big HERE

As ever, if anyone has any specific queries on the above image then don’t hesitate to drop me a comment on the blog, then as soon as i get chance I’ll email you a response!

Until next time!

The Trader

Hi folks, I’m hopefully not too late this week’s post, only a week and 2 days . Anyway, better late than never!

Once again absolutely fantastic news to share with you all! In my last post I told you that I had entered a couple of photography competitions – The Taylor Wessing  and Take a View, well I’ve been told by the guys over at Take a View that the photo at the end of this link has been shortlisted for the final.

The Take a View competition is for the UK Landscape photographer of the year, and the first prize is a staggering £10k! I’m not getting too carried away as the final judgement isn’t until the end of October, testimony to the number of images that have made it to the final, but the fact that this is a national competition and I’ve been shortlisted is still an achievement I’m chuffed to bits with!

Before we all get giddy on the joys of landscape photography, I think now would be an appropriate time to ground everyone with another nice portrait!

It really makes me laugh sometimes, I often find myself in a situation where I feel desperate to get out with my camera and shoot some stuff. On the day I took the shot below, I was planning to drive 40 miles to Bristol in order to shoot street portraits, on the premise that due to Bristol being a big city, there would be loads of potential material.

In the end I thought such an expedition wasn’t the best use of petrol and instead decided to walk 2 minutes out of my flat and wander around my little home town of Tewkesbury. In fact, I narrowed down my search area to a small open market, upon where I stumbled upon this chap called Ray, who was working on a stall.

I think I’ve said before that I’ve never been a fan of candid photography. Whilst I appreciate that such an approach can capture timeless spontaneity, this is not what I want to achieve. When I shoot portraits I want all the gritty details, and the best way of achieving this for me at least, is to walk straight up to a person and ask them to pose and so I dived in and asked Ray to look at the camera.

One trick I have learned is to ask the subject not to smile. It makes for a lot more dramatic shot. Just my personal preference!

This shot needs to be viewed big HERE

As with all my portraits, the above shot was subject to extennsive post processing, to add detail and impact and I’m really pleased with the results.

Unfortunately for some reason I am exploring, the View Big settings have been playing up, but rest assured I’m looking into resolving this issue, as pictures like the one above really need to be seen up close!

Untill next time, happy snapping!

Prosthesis

Hey folks

Again I’ve been mega busy as of late, soo I haven’t been able to post as regularly as I would like, but such is life, no rest for the wicked! Much of my time has been spent preparing photos for a couple of competitions that I have entered. The first is the National Portrait Gallery – Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, which as you might expect is for portraits! The second is the Take a View – Landscape Photographer of the Year, that’s right you guessed it, is for landscapes…woohoo! In all I’ve entered 21 photographs, which I can tell you is hardwork!

Anyway, everything has been entered, so fingers crossed…first prizes are £12,000 and £10,000 respectively…what would i do with £22k he dreams! In addition to all that, i’ve also been preparing my secret photography project which I mentioned in my last post, and which unfortunately I can’t yet share with anyone…:-(

Right then, back to this weeks post. The shot below is one of the images entered into the National Portrait Gallery competition. As I’m sure you all now appreciate, I’m totally obsessed with photography, and so am always on the look out for a photography opportunity. So, imagine myy delight when I happened upon a pair of artifical legs in a local antique shop. Well, to be honest, they are not prosthesis as this post suggests, but are in fact for keeping the shape of riding boots…don’t you know!

After a quick incursion into the said antique shop, the proprietor allowed me to borrow them for a couple of days. Trust me, two days isn’t a long time to source a model (especially one without legs), and a suitable loction but  I managed to crack it and bellow is the finished shot:

The model was lit using two strobes, the first was fired through an umbrella behing the camera and just to the right, in order to acheive a Rembrandt lighting effect. The second flash was fired through a snoot positioned just to the right front of the camera and directed at the models dress, in order to bring textures in the clothing.

The final image was then subject to fairly limited post-processing, which involved conversion to monochrome and then some work maximising the tonal range of the shot.

Right, that’s almost it for this week, aside from a big thankyou to Nichola for standing in as a model at such short notice (also, not the use of the word “standing” Nichola does indeed have legs!).

Until next time…happy snapping!

The Great Esc-ape

Hi folks.

Ridiculously late again with this weeks post, but the delay is for all the right reasons! I’ve been really busy trying to promote my abilities and profile as a budding photographer!

One promotional avenue has been to enter my work into The Midland Regional Photographic Competition, and I’m very pleased to say that this photo won best contemporary image. I’m also very pleased to say that I’ll receive a nice swanky trophy! Once the engravers have finished I’ll post a photo for you!

The second promotional avenue is I’m afraid to say TOP SECRET but if I can pull it off will help get imagespike on the map! Unfortunately, I don’t expect to get results immediately but when I do I’l let you all know…rest assured, this will be very cool if it comes off!

Anyway, lets get back to this weeks image! My last image was taken whilst on holiday in Dorset. Whenever I go on holiday, or anywhere in fact, I’m always thinking about what I can get out of a place with my camera. My photography agenda for the Dorset trip was to bag a few nice coastal shots…which i did.

It was however completely unexpected to grab this shot of an Orangutan, not part of the plan! The shot was taken at a place called…you guessed it, Monkey World! I love animals and soo the chance to sea a few monkey’s was a big yes..especially as I was packing my gorgeous Nikon 200mm!

For some reason I always feel guilty shooting caged annimals, they just look so pi$$ed off sat their, chewing on cardboard whilst idiots like me shove a long lense in their face. For this reason I didn’t shoot half as much as I thought I would, but when i spotted this sad looking fellow I had to.

Ironically enough the apes at the centre are actually ones that have been rescued from animal testing centres. Whilst it’s great that they are now being looked after, it’s just a shame that they are now so messed up they can’t be released back into the wild….

Right, that’s about it for this week!!

Until next time!

Prehistoric Coast – Durdle Door

Hi guys,

I hope this weeks post finds you all well! I know I’m a bit late with this one, but I’ve just got back from my holidays, where I’ve been visiting the Dorset coast.

Being a northern lad, I’ve never really had much opportunity to visit the south coast, so a trip to Dorset was a rare treat! The Dorset coast has always interested me, ever since reading about its formation in the Jurassic period (reading undertaken during my Geography / History degree studies).

It really is a spectacular location, and if like me you libve in a location relatively land locked, the opportunity to shoot spectacular coastlines is a real must.

The shot below is taken at the famous Durdle Door limestone arch (read about it here). This shot is taken from behind the arch, which is the rock formation extending from bootom left.

There were a few people higher up the rock formation than I was, poncing about with their point and shoot cameras. I have nothing against people who use point and shoots, but it always makes me laugh when they start using the built in flash…come on, think about it, is that tiny little flash really going to light up 1 mile of coastline!?

Fortunately I managed to find a discreet little ledge out of their way (it was slightly precarious) where I set up the camera and started shooting. The other thing that makes me chuckle is when photographers shooting a sunset always pack up when the sun has set. Top tip: Always hand around for half an hour after sunset, as sometimes that’s when you get the most spectacular colours!

(Spot the little man on the beach!)

All in all it was a really great little holiday and I managed to capture some really great images so stay tuned as they’ll be sprinkled in the blog during the coming weeks.

Happy snapping!