Pic of the Day ~ Sept 30th 2011 ~ HDR Photography

HDR Photography, Love it or hate it... its out there! Here's a quicky i did whilst working up in Stirling for HSBC Bank last week ... Its quite erie and also soft and fluffy at the same time i think!? Anyway .... hope you enjoy it? please hit the 'like' if you do (sorry they don't have a 'dislike' button but you can always leave a comment! :-)

Pic of the Day ~ 27th Sept 2011

Todays Pic of the Day... Simple.... because its my beautiful daughter in all her innocence!  Playing in the woods and ran over to me whilst i was about to take a shot.... i quickly turned the camera skywards and this is the shot. Bless you Daisy Pie :-) x

Photographing the Southbank with Energy

My lovely clients at  'energy design' gave me a great job recently down along London's Southbank. My shots were to be used in a local area guide, marketing the swanky new 'Grange Garden' housing development down near Bermondsey. These are the sort of jobs i just love!! Me, my camera, lots of walking and hunting out interesting places, features, and funky people. The weather was glorious, so i jumped on my motorbike and headed down there early. My brief was to show the local area, its atmosphere, the characters, the bars and restaurants etc. If there is one aspect to documentary/reportage photography i love it is capturing the things that are there, happening under your nose... I love people watching and seeing people going about their busy lives.

Have to say the cover shot was my fave also, so glad it made it there!! :-)[slideshow]

If you are down that way, why not pop into Grange Garden and see some of my images displayed in the reception area... here are a few shots from my iphone of me having a peek myself last week :-)[gallery columns="4" orderby="ID"]

Go West!

Here is a job i recently did for a large commercial property owner in Central London. My brief was to visit some of their properties, traders and the people of the area, to capture 'What the West End means to me'. I had great fun doing this job, but was often tricky convincing people on the fly that i was for real! People are very suspicious of you when you stroll towards them brandishing a camera, a smile and a printed bit of paper! :)

Hope you enjoy the results and hope you like the final artwork. My fave shot was the mad 'red hairdressers'! Bonkers![slideshow]

Beautiful East Sussex

I had to visit Robertsbridge in East Sussex again this Summer, to work for 3 days with the lovely people at Community Playthings I have produced their catalogue photography for the last 3 years and its one job i always really look forward to! The people are great!, we get a lot done, but we still have fun and they always make sure i am fully lavished in food and drink all day, not to mention the amazing home made cookies they send me off with ! :-)

I also get to stay in this beautiful part of the world and explore a bit in the eve's. This year i stayed in a beautiful B&B called 'The Old Courthouse' down the road in Hurst Green. I have to say it was amazing!! Tim and Julie Weare who run this beautiful place are the best hosts going... i even had my full English breakfast brought into my room! now that is service! ;) so ... if you want a nice little get away in the most historic part of Britian, get in touch with Julie on 01580 860080 and she will be glad to look after you! enjoy...

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Lis came down and stayed with me for 1 of my nights so we took the opportunity to visit Bodium Castle which was literally 10 mins away. What a stunning Castle it is too!

Wireless Speedlights - Strobist Softbox Technique Tutorial

YouTube - Strobist Softbox Technique Tutorial. http://www.youtube.com/v/w0g63DggyzQ

Ok, so for a while i have wanted to use my speedlights a bit more creatively, so I bought the Nikon SU800 Commander which allows me to control as many speedlights as i like remotely. I invested in a couple of popout softboxes and off i went.... straight round to my kids and got them on the trampoline to see what we could get!

Watch this space....

The Finishing Touch

A quickie here... i recently did some event pics for a great client ~ Mr David Key of Finishing Touch Events at a wonderful venue... Lincolns Inn - the Barrister capital of London and the UK. David runs a great event, and had me on hand to capture the guests enjoying themselves... i just wanted to show you the beautiful old banqueting hall ... what a venue! :-)

This guy was once of the best magicians i have ever seen ...

I had a lot of guests to get into a group shot, so went on a 2 min scout of the surrounding area and found this great clearing with a stone staircase in front of it that i was able to get upto and shoot down. This is also a good way of making sure all faces are brightly lit as they have to look skywards ...

Wireless Speedlights

Well, here are the results of my first play with wireless flash. I hooked up 2 Nikon SB800 Flash units onto some small light stands with my great new fold out softboxes... All was quite straightforward.... only limiting factor is that you have to angle the flash to make sure its 'infrared' sensor window can see the SU800 commander on top of your camera... if it can't - NO flash! I am really pleased with the ease of use, portability and quality of light you can get using this set up ... throw them into Lightroom and job done! :)

 

The Harvey Juniors are both great guinea pig models and always on hand for a bit of camera fun...! :(

I love this shot of Daisy, she has such a great sense of humour in front of the camera.... her 'casual' expression and mad pose looks brilliant! Go Daisy! ;)

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This is my fave shot! Love Daisy's body language and face in the background! Gabe doesn't seem to be noticing her annoyance at the amount of time he has been on!