Professional Photographer Magazine kindly asked to interview me for the July Issue of their magazine.
Receipt Bank Animated Still
Back in November, I was commissioned by my client Receipt Bank to capture several of its clients in their workplaces.
The final images were destined to be printed into large promotional pieces and I’ll be publishing theses as soon as I can.
When I’m on an assignment I’m always looking beyond the brief anticipating other ideas while I’m at a location.
This was one of those occasions when the guy and the amazing location was too good not to capture other options after of course, I had captured what my client wanted.
The final image below is a still image that I have animated in After Effects which can be used for short social media content.
For clients, it gives extra value by offering video production services that allows the repurposing existing images and extending their budgets further.
[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq-vxwwjMrA”]
Another Time-Lapse video from my project Somerset Uncovered.
I had been wanting to test out a new bit of equipment on location to aid my shooting Time-Lapse videos and the perfect opportunity arrived this week.
With a beautiful evening forecast that looked like delivering a stunning sunset this would be perfect test conditions.
My son was playing a Cricket match at the village cricket club which is situated in beautiful surroundings.
I wanted to capture the setting sun and the match within my composition so I arrived and located the perfect spot.
Not really being a follower of Cricket and the rules I asked how long was left and told the home team were now starting to bat so could be a while..perfect !
I had only shot for about 10 minutes when suddenly everyone shook hands and disappeared. Apparently they won the game with just a few runs so nobody else was required to bat so they all buggered off home!.
Not too worry I decided to keep shooting as my hunch at a fantastic sunset still looked promising so I stayed another 50 minutes and was glad I did as the sky was incredible.
[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/341102387″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]
Creative Video Production, Parallax Video Lilianna The Palace
Lilianna The Palace Of The Grand Masters Rhodes.
This is an image I applied some creative post-production upon and is created from several photographs.
It was also an image I thought would work with some creative video production applied and created using 2.4D motion as a Parallax image.
Keep an eye out for some subtle motion work.
[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/333857762″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]
With technology in constant movement it’s sometimes hard to know when something new appears if it’s just a temporary gimmick or if it’s actually something useful that will stay around.
3d motion or 2.5d to be more precise has been around a while and caught my eye.
It grabbed my interest as I could see how it could add value to clients by using the same still images shot for a campaign and repurposing them for motion based ads.
Like most things the images work best when pre planned to be used in this way but you can still create some subtle eye catching Parralax images from the simplest image like this portrait of a Belly Dancer.
[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/258647113″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]
The following samples are a little more complicated to produce requiring elements on several layers (spot the subtle seagull movement).
[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/257257982″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]
[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/256236312″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]
More stills based motion work can be found Here
Video Production Services. Repurposing Images With The Parallax 3D Technique
I’m always looking to be able to offer clients more bang for their buck especially when budgets are tight.
Repurposing existing stills into 3D engaging video (actually 2.5D to be precise) clips is one way to offer more value and provide engaging content for a website and social media channels.
Best results are always to be had by planning with the end result in mind and shooting with the following Parallax technique is no exception.
However, it’s still possible to take an existing image and produce some incredible results.
The first sample below was captured for my client Mimecast and is a fairly straightforward still image from a business lifestyle production shot on location in London.
With a little post-production and 3D rendering, it was possible to repurpose the image into a simple and eye-catching image asset.
This image was a little more involved and shot with the Parallax technique in mind which allowed a little more scope for creating some depth and motion.
Again this one lent itself perfectly to a Parallax effect keep an eye out for a couple of subtle movements towards the end of the movie.
You can view more motion work here
Jun
10
It’s been a very busy year so far which is my main excuse for not updating the blog in several months.
One of the reasons is I’ve recently taken on a new client who are currently keeping me extremely busy.
Part of the work this client needed required me to do aerial stills and motion work via a quad copter (Drone).
This in turn required a hectic 3 day training course for certification to fly commercially, which I’m pleased to say I passed.
Learning yet another skillset to stay current seems to be a regular thing these days and something that certainly keeps life interesting !
Ive done several aerial shoots so far and getting more creative and daring (within the civil aviation authority rules) with each flight.
A personal shoot Ive been planning since getting the aircraft is the one shown here.
This spot is special place to me as it’s somewhere I used to visit almost weekly with my mother in her later years.
It’s also a place i’ve photographed many times over the last 30 plus years.
The spot is situated on the Somerset Levels and you might just make out Glastonbury Tor on the horizon.
What I never done is shot the area from the elevated perspective and positions that the drone offers.
With good weather forecast with a fair chance of some low hanging moorland mist I set the alarm for a 4am start.
Drone work needs a fair amount of pre planning for safety reasons before getting on location and a fair few more checklist to tick off on the day too.
I did two flights that morning capturing some stills but mostly motion footage which Ive edited into a short video shown here.
As a personal piece of work I think this is a brief but fitting video shot from an appropriate vantage point to remember my loving mum.
[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/221090253″ width=”800″ height=”450″]
For several months this year we worked on a large project for a company called Protexin.
Protexin manufacture and distribute worldwide Probiotcs for human & animals consumption and where looking for a new way of showcasing to their international customers their impressive state of the art production line, staff and premises.
As we had been keen to work with them for quite a while we set up a meeting and proposed shooting a video using thousands of still frames (and some motion) to showcase their company in a contemporary and engaging way.
After shooting using the technique at one of the many exhibition that they attend (see Protexin A Engaging Video Solution ) they decided to expand the project even further to produce the finished video below.
After a fair amount of pre production and planning not to mention many many hours of processing, colour grading, a pinch of after effects and plenty of video editing the project was finally finished.
Protexin where extremely happy with the finished product and we have since worked on several other albeit smaller Photographic projects with them.
Photography is still a relatively new media (100 or so years old) so we are told and now we all are shooting digitally it seems to be evolving quicker than ever.
For me every day is a school day and just like school of days gone bye some days the learning is necessary but a little dull and others extremely exciting that open new creative possibilities for creating imagery.
One such technique that has got me excited and one I have been experimenting with recently is Stop Motion Photography which blends still photography with video to produce some very contemporary looking movies.
This week I have been fortunate to be able to confirm working with a great new client whom I have wanted to work with for a while. My first commission is a fairly large project shooting with this very technique starting this week.
In the meantime here is a short sample shot at our Monks Yard studios onsite cafe to showcase their gorgeous specials menu.
[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/63266636″ width=”1280″]
