Dec
28
Dec
18
While in Holland a couple of weeks ago I had a small amount of time to explore Rotterdam. My initial plan was to jump on a boat and visit some windmills that were situated not too far from the city center but unfortunately, this meant I’d be cutting things a little fine to get back to catch my flight home.
A little disappointed I decided instead to catch a water bus down the Nieuwe Maas river for an hour or so and capture a few images for my composite archive and enjoy the views.
The weather was a little grey and misty but in my opinion, there is never bad weather or light for image making it just depends on what you want for the shoot in mind.
During one of the many stops, the water bus made I noticed this house on the banks of the river that for some reason I was strangely drawn to.
Maybe it was because I watch too many horror films but with the damp December weather providing an appropriate backdrop it looked slightly eerie sat isolated on the edge of the river.
The last few weeks have been pretty busy with a rather diverse mix of assignments both here and abroad.
Rather than wind down and take an early Christmas we are currently preparing to complete some shoots for one of our ongoing personal projects (See The Cider Orchards & Withy Centre Posts).
Personal work is and always has been a very important part of my photography. For me it’s an extension of my commercial work except I have complete creative freedom to cut loose,experiment and generally create whatever inspires me at the time.
A couple of things that do get me excited to go out and shoot are exploring new places and it’s people. Fortunately last week after completing an assignment in Rotterdam I had a few hours the following day to explore the city and I and set myself the challenge to come home with a few shots to sum up this very interesting and modern city.
The image here was captured at dawn and combines several iconic elements of Rotterdam including the huge Nieuwe Maas river, the beautiful Erasmusbrug Bridge and lighting up the horizon the very modern De Rotterdam building.
Nov
24
It seems a distant blur since my week in Portugal probably partly due to being very busy completing a couple of commissions since returning home.
Now these jobs have been completed I finally had time to start going through a few of the images from my trip and managed to complete this one titled “Perigoso Path” (Dangerous Path).
The light in Portugal was stunning and produced some of the most colorful sunsets I’ve experienced for a very long time which of course I captured for my composite archives to be used at a later date if needed.
The cliffs in the image here where captured at dawn which is often my preferred time to shoot as it usually means less people around to spoil the view !
The coastline here provided me with several interesting locations to capture over the week and I plan to add a couple more of the images to the blog as when time permits.
This week the weather finally looked perfect and we got to shoot the old Cider Orchard I mentioned in a previous post.
I arrived on my own at the orchard just after sunrise and spent nearly two hours in the beautiful autumn light capturing all the images I would need ready for the composite.
I should explain again that the plan was to capture the orchard now while full of Apples and then photograph the guys from Richies Cider when things quieten down for them after the harvest.
The shoot was pretty simple and most the time was spent trying to create nice clean compositions as there was just so many trees full of fruit close to each other that it was a little too much !
We now have to create our backdrop from the images captured and arrange to return to Richies Cider Farm in a few weeks to capture the images of the guys to complete our vision for the final image.
I’ve been shooting and editing video for a good few years now for the purpose of presenting and illustrating Photography & Retouching training.
This year however I find myself shooting more and more creative video type work which blends stills & video.
Some of this work is nearing the end of production for a client so I’m unable to publish just yet but here is something similar we shot for our Studio based Cafe
Something else we have started to play with is Time Lapse photography which once again blends still photography with video.
Below is a short video titled “Dancing Shadows Over The Crops” we shot last week on a glorious summer afternoon in a beautiful field of crops and Butterflies.
This was our first attempt at Time Lapse and it requires a lot of images,batteries and most of all patience !..more to follow.
[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/69765604″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]
Jun
17
I captured this image while out for a stroll one evening during my recent trip to Turkey.
It’s not often these days that I go out and just follow my nose with my camera and rarer still that I don’t use a tripod.
Most of my work these days is fairly planned out at least to some point or other so to go out and simply walk & explore is bliss. This takes me back to a time when I was learning my trade and the camera was welded to my eyelid wherever I went!
It was a beautiful evening and I came across 3 young lads jumping off a small wooden pier into the bay at Gumbet.
It wasn’t long before they spotted my camera and started to play to the camera which would normally be my cue to pack away. I decided however the light was just too good to walk away and besides I was simply enjoying the fun too much and getting too many great captures to end it.
Despite being grab shots the images still got a good dose of post production to help portray the mood of this beautiful sunset over the Aegean.
Following on from my previous post I have now completed the post production work on “Good King Hal”
The shoot took place with Mike Farley aka Good King Hal leading professional Henry VIII lookalike here in the U.K.
I had an idea of what I wanted the final image to look like and this was helped along further by doing a recce of Barrington Court a few days earlier.
The planning also helped move the shoot along nice and quickly to save keeping former comedian Mike waiting around too long, in fact we where all done and dusted in about 40 minutes.
A big thanks to Mike and to the National Trust’s Barrington Court for allowing us use of the property.
Below is the final image together with a short location video.
Henry VIII Shoot At Barrington Court, Mike Farley 07709 216281 http://goodkinghal.co.uk/
[su_vimeo url=”http://vimeo.com/64554800″ width=”1280″]
Today we finally managed to complete a shoot of Mike Farley a leading professional Henry VIII lookalike.
The shoot was captured at The National Trusts Barrington Court property in South Somerset has been planned for a while but delayed due to the late spring we have experienced here in the U.K
Here is a teaser video with more to come once all the post production has been completed.
[su_vimeo url=”http://vimeo.com/64378490″ width=”1280″]
Over the last few years it’s become an annual habit to take a late October holiday with the family to try and catch a last bit of sun before winter.
I have to admit I have grown to love the Balearic Islands with Ibiza being probably my favorite of the islands.
Another thing I have loved for many years despite probably being too old to be admitting it here is Trance music though I tend to enjoy listening to it on my iPhone or in my car rather than in any clubs (definitely too old for that !)
While scouting the island I had spotted this beach side Cafe and decided that one evening I would go set the camera up sit and enjoy the fading light while listening to some music.
The fading light (The Edge Of Darkness as I call it) was simply beautiful and provided me with a very magical evening doing what I love while listening to some bangin tunes …must remember not to embarrass the kids !!
