Jan
31
Portrait of father & son at ARB Scrapyard, Somerset Levels early 1990’s
Jan
31
Photographed in mid 1990’s Mr Butt was a common site around the streets of Burnham On Sea Somerset with his rustic cart.
L.A.P.D Officer, Venice Beach California 1992
Trec A Lifestyle Portrait, Venice Beach 1992
While touring America as a younger man! my last stop was Venice Beach in L.A.
I found Venice beach to be everything I had anticipated it to be including some very interesting people for capturing lifestyle portraits.
It was while enjoying the beach that I saw this guy working Brooks Tower (lifeguard station) and I knew I couldn’t depart California without capturing an iconic lifeguard made famous by Baywatch!
After chatting for a short while I discovered that the gentlemen’s name was Trec and he informed me he was approaching 40 years old and had been a lifeguard for many years in Venice Beach.
Not wanting to distract him long for obvious reasons I quickly captured several frames of film of him with thanks and left him to keep everyone safe around Brooks Tower.
Lifestyle Portrait Of Venice Beach Lifeguard California
Trec Vencie Beach Life Guard 1992
Retired Cornish fisherman Ronnie Prisk photographed in St Ives in mid-1990s
Cornish Fisherman St Ives
As an advertising photographer when creating images I’m always looking for the highest quality, both in capture and when I’m photo retouching
However, just recently I have realised that sometimes image content rules over how sharp,well-exposed or even well lit an image is..who would have imagined that!
A fresh-faced me with a camera at the ready and hair!
Nearly a year ago I lost my mother and as a result, I have found myself reminiscing a lot about my childhood and youth growing up in Somerset.
I decided a few weeks ago to open up my film archives which contain thousands of images spanning 15 or so years.
Jan
14
A few months back I was assigned by Advertising Agency Bray Leino to spend a couple of days shooting on location for their client Centek. Centek manufacture equipment for the oil drilling industry and I was briefed to capture their state of the art manufacturing process and people who help run it.The job was pretty full on as deadlines where fast approaching for a launch of a new factory and the images or at least some where needed for this. Myself one assistant and Art Director sucessfully finished the shoot with time to spare and I then spent the following day shooting samples of the products in the studio.
Dec
13
Over the years I have learnt that It’s inevitable that I (and many others in the creative industry) will experience a creative slump now and again. This used to frustrate and even worry me at times when I wanted to create new personal work but found myself devoid of ideas.
The solution for me at least is take a break from trying too hard by either going to watch a film, listen to music or go for a walk with my camera or iPhone.The latter with my iPhone I especially find beneficial as it forces me to only to use my eye to try and create interesting images due the cameras simplicity which strips away any bells and whistles and provides a great creative workout without the technical stuff getting in the way.
It’s a week before Christmas as I publish this post and today we got the tree up with the kids then went to a local farm on the Somerset Levels to stock up on some mulled cider. Here are a few iPhone images I snapped with my new iPhone 6 Plus which is bigger better but still basic when it comes to camera buttons…thankfully !
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Nov
21
It’s hard to believe that only a few weeks ago I was with the family sunning ourselves in 24 degrees in sunny Spain.Although a family holiday I as always took along my cameras,tripod etc and ventured out several times at dawn during the week to capture some images that represented the location as I was experiencing it. The Costa Del Sol is a lovely area of Spain with beautiful beaches and people out enjoying the warm climate either cycling or running often with their dogs in tow.The image I created below shows the beach,palm trees and one of the several lifeguard towers that occupy the beaches. The final element was to photograph the lifestyle image upon my return to the UK which completes the outdoor family lifestyle of the Costa’s.The final image shown here ended up combining 11 separate images and retains details as fine as dog hairs which is always a time consuming but hugely important element in all of the work I create.
Northern Soul is making another resurgence at the moment and it’s been some 29 years since my days of attending all-nighters at various venues and Scooter rallies across the country. One of my friends Terry however is still hitting the talcum powder dusted dance floor from dusk to dawn (I’m not exaggerating!) across the UK. He still is a remarkable dancer and considering he’s older than me (sorry mate had to get that in) that is even more credit to him. With this in mind, I just had to create an image that captured his passion to dance and my vision/memories of those ballrooms across the UK.
We shot the images in our studio which is an old stone barn with ideal solid wood floors for Terry to strut his stuff upon.
The shoot was incredibly fun and we ended up with so many great images that the selection process took me forever to finally decide on my final image as did cleaning up all the baby talc from the studio floor!
The post-production consisted of compositing an appropriate background and creating just the right ambiance.
Below is a short video of the shoot, completed images, and a few that got shortlisted but not used.
