Happy New Year…We often say that as a matter of politeness..but it does not always feel that way does it? It’s no secret or maybe surprise that those in the creative freelancing field can often be plagued by self-doubt especially when times are slow at this time of year.
I captured this image on a very memorable sunny but cold weekend in Venice in 2004. It was a few days before Christmas and the majority of Venice was dressed ready for the festivities with lights & decorations. As dusk approached the whole place transformed into an adults Christmas grotto which was an incredible sight. This was my first time on a trip with my digital camera gear and so I was eager to explore and test its capabilities, especially handheld in very low light. This off the cuff image shows a Gondolier waiting at end of the day on one of the many small rustic bridges that Venice is abundant with. Technically this isn’t perfect, but I do love the ambience that it captures at that magical time of day which is actually neither truely day or night but as I like to call it the edge of darkness.
I love to travel,explore new places,meet new people and of course capture them. This image came from a recent family break in Majorca Spain a few weeks ago. I’m no stranger to Majorca having visited several times in recent years but like anywhere there is always something new to find and experience if you are prepared to look.
Inspiration to create images comes in many forms at least for me. While retouching some work the other week I decided to randomly listen to something completely different from my normal playlists on Spotify and put on some Bluegrass music. One track, in particular, hit a chord (pardon the pun) which as you may expect from the Bluegrass genre contained the Banjo.
I’m generally not known as an interior photographer or for doing kitchen photography but like most photographic genres I’ve probably at some point done it but just don’t advertise or claim to specialise in it.
In the case of Interior Design company Papilo they contacted me as they required some tricky interiors photographing and knew with my image retouching services and knowledge I could possibly help capture what they required.
Steve & Matt Papilo’s directors also explained they needed some corporate portraits that also would showcase their interior design style at the same time.
The idea for the portraits was pretty much dictated by the location so we finalised everything on the day of the shoot.
I decided once I had seen the interior that the approach should be a composite image to allow for maximum flexibility.
The shoot went without any issues and so with time to spare decided on another alternative both shown below.
For the interiors, we planned to capture the rooms when the exterior ambient light was at the correct angle and intensity.
This was to allow enough daylight to illuminate albeit very dimly through any visible windows.
Capturing all of the lighting intensities and dark surfaces required some care shooting and time to produce in post-production but I’m pleased to say Papilio were very happy with the results.
A few weeks ago I received a call from Ice House Design In Bath which is always exciting as I’ve had some lovely briefs from them in the past.
It turned out this call was to chat about another interesting brief titled ” Whoever You Want To Be” for a private school in Bath called Stonar.
The concept was to show the wide variety of activities and opportunities the school offed by showing the same students repeated in the image but in other outfits.
After a brief chat about what I thought might be the best solution to getting the job shot and retouched Jack from Ice House explained about the rather tight deadlines that needed to be met.
The completion dates required happened to be bang in the middle of one of the busiest periods I’ve known as well a family holiday but a doable schedule was drawn up and the job was booked in.
The shoot itself was shot on location at a beautiful 18th-century Georgian mansion called Hartham Park close to Bath.
Upon arrival on the shoot day, It seemed every corner of Haytham’s interior offered me another photographic opportunity and the phrase “Kid Candy Shop” comes to mind.
Finally though myself and Les, the creative director narrowed it down two rooms that fitted the brief perfectly and the job was completed within our allotted time.
A few days (and early hours) in the post was needed to meet a couple of the deadlines but the whole job went together without any drama and more importantly, the client & agency were very pleased with the results.
Design Agency Ice House Design
Photography Simon Plant
A few weeks ago I received a call from Ice House Design In Bath which is always exciting as I’ve had some lovely briefs from them in the past.
It turned out this call was to chat about another interesting brief titled ” Whoever You Want To Be” for a private school in Bath called Stonar.
The concept was to show the wide variety of activities and opportunities the school offed by showing the same students repeated in the image but in other outfits.
After a brief chat about what I thought might be the best solution to getting the job shot and retouched Jack from Ice House explained about the rather tight deadlines that needed to be met.
The completion dates required happened to be bang in the middle of one of the busiest periods I’ve known as well a family holiday but a doable schedule was drawn up and the job was booked in.
The shoot itself was shot on location at a beautiful 18th-century Georgian mansion called Hartham Park close to Bath.
Upon arrival on the shoot day, It seemed every corner of Haytham’s interior offered me another photographic opportunity and the phrase “Kid Candy Shop” comes to mind.
Finally though myself and Les, the creative director narrowed it down two rooms that fitted the brief perfectly and the job was completed within our allotted time.
A few days (and early hours) in the post was needed to meet a couple of the deadlines but the whole job went together without any drama and more importantly, the client & agency were very pleased with the results.
Design Agency Ice House Design
Photography Simon Plant
A few weeks ago I received a call from Ice House Design In Bath which is always exciting as I’ve had some lovely briefs from them in the past.
It turned out this call was to chat about another interesting brief titled ” Whoever You Want To Be” for a private school in Bath called Stonar.
The concept was to show the wide variety of activities and opportunities the school offed by showing the same students repeated in the image but in other outfits.
After a brief chat about what I thought might be the best solution to getting the job shot and retouched Jack from Ice House explained about the rather tight deadlines that needed to be met.
The completion dates required happened to be bang in the middle of one of the busiest periods I’ve known as well a family holiday but a doable schedule was drawn up and the job was booked in.
The shoot itself was shot on location at a beautiful 18th-century Georgian mansion called Hartham Park close to Bath.
Upon arrival on the shoot day, It seemed every corner of Haytham’s interior offered me another photographic opportunity and the phrase “Kid Candy Shop” comes to mind.
Finally though myself and Les, the creative director narrowed it down two rooms that fitted the brief perfectly and the job was completed within our allotted time.
A few days (and early hours) in the post was needed to meet a couple of the deadlines but the whole job went together without any drama and more importantly, the client & agency were very pleased with the results.
Design Agency Ice House Design
Photography Simon Plant
A break from the darkness
As a commercial and corporate photographer based in Somerset, I sure have done some travelling these past few weeks.
A couple of weeks ago I posted Boosting The Ayr Miles about my recent shoots including one in Ayrshire Scotland.
Fortunately, I provide a range of corporate photography services including video production services and these skills came in very handy on these shoots.
The shoot below was for KCP Limited who work nationwide from their Scottish base in Ayrshire.
KCP operates a large fleet of bespoke vehicles that dispose of all manners of waste and are Scotland’s leaders in their field.
My brief was to capture both images of staff and the vehicles on location at the various sites that KCP maintain and also come up with some hero shots of the vehicles within the beautiful Scottish landscape.
Apart from this, I was left with complete creative freedom including picking some of the locations which actually proved much easier than expected.
We had a very tight schedule with just 2 half days but the weather played nice for the most part.
The one image I was not completely looking forward too was a request for a high shot of the fleet from a cherry picker as heights are not my favourite thing and at this point, I hadnt moved into commercial drone work.
The two main concerns I had was the wind had got up (sods friggin law !) and the fact the owner of KCP Karl was going to be operating the machine.
The reason Karl was a concern is that we have been friends since our teenage years and I knew he would not miss a chance to have some fun scaring me…which of course he did !
Not A Face To Be Trusted!
You can never say this industry is boring, frustrating & unpredictable at times yes, but never boring.
It’s been a very manic few weeks seeing me on location in Scotland, Denmark and a couple of jobs in London.
This week made me realise once again just how no two days or two jobs are ever the same and why I love what I do.
Monday morning saw me in the heart of central London for an early morning corporate portrait shoot in some very modern and swanky offices.
This was followed a couple of days later when I found myself on route to the beautiful South Hams in Devon shooting a Lighthouse for a recent new client.
The contrast in the assignments & the locations was simply chalk & cheese.
The London assignment was in the heart of the city with tall modern office buildings and as you might expect pretty full-on but also quite a buzz.
The Devon shoot was also a pretty busy day however the location was simply mesmerising and you could not work for long without taking a moment to once again appreciate the stunning coastline views from our elevated clifftop location.
This kind of day makes me realise how lucky I am (due to many years ongoing hard work !) to get to visit such great places and meet so many interesting people because of the camera.
More images will follow in the coming weeks but for now, here are a few iPhone snaps from both shoots and a little video.
Have a great weekend everyone….
[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/129832517″ width=”1280″ height=”720″]
A precarious viewpoint!
While on assignment in Rotterdam Holland last year I had a day spare to explore and take in the sights of Amsterdam.
Only having less than a day mean’t priortising what to take in so I decided to explore the old part of town along the canals and take a boat trip before heading to the airport and home.
Even though I knew Amsterdam was renowned for it bicycles (amongst other things) it was still a sight to see so many being ridden or parked up up on every corner.
This image is a composite using images captured just a few feet from each other.Shooting this way allowed me to create a cleaner more uncluttered composition will a slightly more compressed look which suits my vision.
