Charity Fashion Show for LAMP

The models and Kwoklyn Wan

Wow, I've not Blogged in a while!! Time for Cake, and a little personal project

An hour in the life of a professional baker.

Canon CPS Event - Chelsea Football Club

I was lucky enough to be able to attend a recent Canon CPS event about low light photography. This involved two fantastic guest speakers, being able to try out all on the new Canon gear. Then finally a photo shoot of an amazing student band from London.

Here are a few of the images from throughout the day.

Cosby U16 Foxes, Girls Football Team

A friend of mine manages the under 16 girls football team over in Cosby. He asked my advice about taking a group shot with his point and shoot camera, in the dark, on the pitch lit by floodlights.

I knew this would be a little challenging so i put myself forward to do the job. Armed with a couple of small flashguns, stands and umbrella's i started shooting.

Adam Bowler Music

I had the privilege of shooting my good friend Adam recently.

He's a very talented singer, guitarist and songwriter. He had booked out The City Rooms in Leicester to shoot a promotion video, so I went along to grab some stills and make them look a little different to the video.

Our friend Doug was doing the video with his new kit so I also grabbed some photos of him for use on his upcoming website as well.

1st Class Pole Fitness

On Sunday evening I popped over to Melton Mowbray to shoot 1st Class Pole Fitness's show.

Now dance photography was my nemesis way back in the late 1990's. I had done some work (lighting & sound) for a few local dance companies at a college I was working at. I'd seen the photographers there and thought to myself 'I can do this'. So during a tech rehearsal armed with my fathers SLR camera and 10-12 rolls of film (yep, film, iso 400 36 exposures) I began shooting.

Did the entire show.

Then waited a few weeks for the films to be developed and printed at 8x10.

Got the prints back and out of 400 odd photos only 6-8, 10 at a push were any good!

I was horrified at how badly i'd done, and how much it had just cost me! I stopped doing any photography until I purchased my first digital camera at this point!

Looking back i can see where i went wrong.

So photographing this dance show was going to be a challenge for me, a challenge that involved low light (no flash allowed) fast movement and multiple person dance routines..

Overall I feel quite good about it, and had a really great evening doing it. The performers were all excellent. There were times when i simply forgot to shoot as I was engrossed in the performance.

Here are a few shots, the full set can be found on my facebook page.

Surprise 30th wedding anniversary party

I was originally just going to be a guest at this event, then i learned that the couple did not have a photographer at their actual wedding... and it was a big regret of theirs.

So i took my camera and hoped to get a few shots for them.

Was nice to see a couple so happy together after 30 years of marriage, and also nice to see the first dance re-done!

Here's a short clip of the main slide show i put together, so they can see the images before they get printed in the book... which i'm also doing.

Do watch in HD!

Now i'm off to shoot a dance group!

Birthday Party!

Who doesn't love a good birthday party??!

My daughter had an invite to her friends party, so I thought i'd grab a few shots whilst there. It was an amazing fun packed 3 hours, and i'm pretty sure everyone who attended (adults included!) were tired by the end!

Reading Operatic Society

Friday night I was working in my other job, as a guitarist. My acoustic duo www.hapemusic.co.uk performed for Reading Operatic Society, it was their annual summer ball.

I didn't see any other photographer's there, and I had my camera with me from a portrait shoot earlier in the day so I thought I'd capture some moments for them.

All in all a brilliant night, combining my love for photography and music!

Commercial fashion shoot

I was contacted a few weeks ago by a new company about a photo shoot for their clothing line.

The brief sounded interesting to me.

Take photos of 5 models, 2 females & 3 males. All of the models would be wearing the unbranded garments, then the companies graphic designer would then apply the artwork to the images during the editing process.

The shoot also had to take place at their location, a lovely big house.

So I took over my complete mobile studio and set up in the kitchen area. Once the lighting was metered I was ready to start.

The shoot went very well. The organisers had prepared a slide show of different poses for the male and female models, this really helped with the work flow.

I look forward to seeing the final images with the artwork added to the garments. I'll be keeping an eye out at www.firetrend.co.uk

Here's a few shots from the day.