Candles remind me of the winter; I guess it's because the nights are longer, the weather is colder, and candles are christmassey things.
Saturday 29 December 2012
Friday 28 December 2012
Eddie & Betsy - Street portraits. 28th December.
I met Eddie and his dog Betsy on the streets of Peterborough today, Eddie had his guitar and was strumming around some chords so that he could earn some money from people passing buy doing their sales shopping. His little dog, Betsy sat by him, just watching people walk by them..... both of them were a pleasure to photograph.
Monday 24 December 2012
Twas the night before Christmas and the Robins were sitting on the tree... 24th December.
Hope you all have an amazing Christmas day tomorrow, full of Celebration, fun, festivity... don't forget to spend a moment thinking about why Christmas exists though.. the celebration of the greatest saviour, Jesus, coming to earth 2000 years ago.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Sunday 23 December 2012
Saturday 22 December 2012
The Brass Band Christmas Carols. 22nd December.
You know it's nearly Christmas when the Salvation Army come out into the high streets with their brass instruments and start playing Christmas Carols. It just really gives towns and cities across England that "Christmas Feeling"
Friday 21 December 2012
Santa's House. 21st December.
So the world's existence didn't come to an end.. so you get to see another one of my daily photographs. Today I bring to you Santa's house. I love Christmas houses, from houses with hints of Christmas, to large displays which light the whole street up!
Thursday 20 December 2012
I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas..Portraits. 20th December.
I had a little portrait session today, I wanted it to feel wintery... hence the hat and scarf.. but during the shoot I discovered how different two photos can be, despite the fact that nothing in the photo has changed except a pose. I love photography and I love working with people.. people are the best, and most versatile subjects to work with.
Tuesday 18 December 2012
A question of Instagram. 18th December.
I am a big Instagram fan; I use it to capture behind the scenes of shoots, travel snaps, the little things in life, and everything inbetween. Now Instagram have changed their policy, they are claiming the rights to sell photographs which belong to the photographer.
It's not like you are uploading high-resolution medium format images, most photographs on Instagram are under 1MB...so it'at highly unlikely they'll be used on a billboard.
Anyway we are using this service for free... what in this world is actually free and with no ulterior motive behind it? Users get to use the great Instagram service, but their payment is the content they upload.
I can't claim to be a genius on the subject, but I have read up the new policies and checked out the Instagram Blog... and I don't think I'll be leaving Instagram anytime soon, I'm not completely happy with it... but we all like to believe that we can get things for free without any catches... it looks like the catch has now risen, but it is not as bad as it could be.
A couple of blogs which can help you understand this Instagram issue a lot more:
Anyway, I will get back to my Christmas photographs tomorrow!!
Monday 17 December 2012
Christmas House 2. 17th December.
Christmas is nearly here and houses are cluttered with lights, especially this one. This house down a small lane in a fenland town has been filled with lights every christmas for many years; through these lights the owners have raised thousands of pounds to give to charities which support children with Leukaemia and Cancer. It is great to see how people are using simple things such as christmas lights and the christmas season to make such a positive impact.
To learn more about this house visit: http://www.childrenwithcancer.org.uk/Blog/christmas-lights
Friday 14 December 2012
Christmas House 1 - A seasonal photo-documentary. 14th December.
If you haven't guessed by now, I like Christmas.. the lights, the smells, the celebration.. it's a great time of year! So I started working on a seasonal photo-documentary without realising it, most of my daily photos are going to be Christmas themed and the film in my analogue cameras is going to be thoroughly Christmas-ified during this glorious season. So, keep watching my blog, facebook and twitter to seem my updates.
Wednesday 12 December 2012
Christmas Window. 12th December.
It's this time of year... the time when dreary, drab and dark windows get replaced with a hint of light... Christmas light. The attics have been opened, the old bag of decorations has been dragged downstairs, and once again houses across the world have been given that hint of Christmas.
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Sunday 9 December 2012
Eye See You (portraiture and hands). 9th December.
A fun little shot from a portrait shoot today. I do love portraiture, it's so fun working with people! My two favourite elements of a portrait are the expression of the sitters face, and the positioning of their hands. I think the use of hands in portraiture is underrated, hands are great and they are so expressive. Next time you take a portrait, think about where the sitters hands are.
Friday 7 December 2012
Cocktails and Interiors. 8th December.
The thing with being a freelance photographer is, you never know what your next job will be... today's job was photographing a new premium bar... I've done interior shoots before, and I've done food & drink shots, but this was my first bar shoot! It was good fun actually, Interior architecture and Drink shoots are so completely different.. one is a wide angle lens job with small apertures and long shutter speeds, the other is completely opposite. Merging them together in one shoot is great fun.
It's also odd not photographing anything living, most of my jobs and commissions include people, animals, or nature... instead of me having to capture what was happening in a scene, I had to replace action and movement with a great composition. Loved it!
Thursday 6 December 2012
Christmas Lights. 6th December.
Had this evening spare, so grabbed the time to go christmas shopping... the task was made somewhat more fun when I was greeted by these beautiful christmas lights!
Tuesday 4 December 2012
Sunday 2 December 2012
Saturday 1 December 2012
A very busy week; train signals, Michael Kenna-style landscapes, and some music photography.
This week has been very busy, so I apologise for my lack of blogging! Monday was spent in York, and a significant amount of time on that day was spent on the train or waiting for delayed trains as the weather was very wet! York is a beautiful city, the purpose of my trip was not photography-based... but I would love to go back and photograph the city.
As I earlier mentioned, the weather has been very wet, causing flooding around my little town... it is very inconvenient but I decided to turn it into a positive by taking some Michael Kenna style landscapes (long exposures, black and white conversions..) The flooded fields and do look quite beautiful when filled with water!
To end off my week I was photographing a concert, Rend Collective Experiment and Matt Redman were playing for the Big Church Night in, Kingsgate was filled with 1400 people (I think) and it was an amazing evening! A great concert to photograph, so much happening on stage and a great atmosphere.
So, a great week!
Tuesday 27 November 2012
Just Sitting, Dolls, Orange Walls, and Speedlight Love. 27th November.
I recently bought an off-camera cable for my Nikon SB-700 speedlight, I am loving using it as it is giving me so much more creative freedom than having it sitting on the top of my camera. I also decided to play about with the filters which came with it, I have an orange wall in my house, but it's not vibrant enough to come out in photos, so I used the orange filter and it gave this lovely sepia-tint to the whole photo!
Definitley think I am going to be using flash a lot more than I used to! Who needs £5k ProFoto lights when you can just use a Nikon speedlight ;)
Saturday 24 November 2012
Thursday 22 November 2012
Magnetic Memoiries - Gardening. 22nd November.
My Grandad enjoyed gardening, he had a shed full of gardening tools and things... I remember one year he grew a sunflower, I climbed to the top of a stepladder and it was still taller than me.. I have a photograph of that somewhere! I think one of the reasons why my Grandad liked gardening so much was because he used to be a farmer, so gardening was probably like tending to a very small farm.
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Wednesday 21 November 2012
2Shoes. 21st November.
Just two black pumps, I was testing out my new cable for my speedlight.. it's nice to be able to hold the flash and move it around instead of it being stuck to the camera all the time!
Tuesday 20 November 2012
The Drawing Book. 20th November.
I have a book, a drawing book, just because sometimes the best inspiration comes from yourself.
Monday 19 November 2012
St.Kyneburgha - A beautiful little church. 19th November.
I was photographing a lovely wedding today, and it was in this beautiful little church in a small village called Castor. I rarely photograph weddings (usually because of the high pressure and the bridezillas that you can stumble upon) but today's wedding was not like that at all, it was a very lovely event and a pleasure to photograph.
I found the church so lovely, the graveyard at the back was filled with ancient gravestones and a few grazing sheep, and it sat on top of a hill overlooking the village... I had to photograph it as I found the building and it's setting quite beautiful.
Sunday 18 November 2012
Magnetic Memoirs. 18th November.
Some of you may know that my Grandad passed away back in April, one of the many things he left behind was the magnet collection that decorated his fridge. My Nanna and Grandad collected magnets throughout their lives, each magnet represents a memory, trip, or something which was part of their lives. I have decided to produce a fine art photo-documentary where I photograph the magnets and then share how they created part of my Grandparents identities.
I remember these two budgies, my Grandparents used to own two which looked exactly like these... I can't really remember the yellowey-green one as it flew away when I was quite young, but I can remember visiting and seeing the blue one. I was young when the blue budgie died, but I have always wanted to own a budgie... it's probably because of my early experiences of seeing them when I visited my grandparents. My Nanna and Grandad liked birds and often left food outside for them; one winter season my Grandad befriended a Robin and gained its trust so much that it used to come right up to the door and eat out of his hand.
Saturday 17 November 2012
Winter at the Lido. 17th November.
On a very chilly winters day when the streets were filled with Christmas shoppers, one city centre establishment was completely empty.
Wednesday 14 November 2012
Orange streets filled with fog. 14th November.
I live in the fens and I admit that winter has started on the first night when I'm in the car and realise that it is so foggy I can only see a metre in front of my car! Fog brings a whole mystical feeling to the fens, it excludes you from the world around you, and it also makes anything that contains light glow in strange orbs. This street was filled with slightly apocalyptic orange light as I was driving home, it had been completely transformed from the street it was in the day time. It's slightly eerie but rather beautiful.
Monday 12 November 2012
Converse as a muse. 12th November.
Converse are cool, they're the shoe brand I always end up investing in. They can also be my muse, I always end up photographing them when I lack inspiration.
Saturday 10 November 2012
My final day at Rankin and my final photographs of the London Transport System. 9th/10th November.
Firstly, sorry this blog is up a day late! Didn't get home till pretty late last night, so I decided to give you a quality blog post today.. instead of a very sleepy blog post last night!!
Yesterday was my final day in London, so it was my final chance to photograph the London transport system.. something which I did throughout the whole of my time in the city.. mainly because some days it was the only subject I could really photograph!
Apart from London transport, yesterday was my last day at Rankin! We had an editorial shoot today with a really lovely actress, the set was very simple and we filled the studio with lights to create some very softly lit images... this included using the biggest Octagon softbox I have ever worked with! The shoot was a lot of fun, it was my last opportunity to work as a member of Rankin's tight team... and it was such a pleasure, now that I have got my head round all the equipment, systems and jobs.. I really felt like I could give the assisting role my all!
After the shoot we had to create a small set for a video interview, this was also another opportunity for me to realise that I have started to understand the whole system at Rankin. I have always been interested in video/film, and I have been able to learn a lot about it whilst I was at Rankin, this has been great as I have gained some new skills that I can apply whenever I do shoot video!
(test shoot)
The day ended by everyone setting down the studio and getting ready for a small shoot that is happening today.
So I left the studio for the last time, clutching a bag filled with some fantastic photobooks by Rankin and I headed to the beautiful Kings Cross Station.. which I have to Instagram every time I'm there, as I love the architecture so much!!
Many people may think assisting Rankin is going to be quite glamourous and fashionable, I can tell you most definitely that it isn't... you will get covered in paint, your arms will ache, and the days are long.... but you do get to work in a team of the most amazingly talented and motivated people, you get the pleasure of watching an amazing photographer at work, you get to learn brilliant photographic techniques, you get to work with and learn about equipment which is way beyond your budget, and it is an experience any emerging photographer should long for!
The past two weeks went so quickly, they were packed with photography... from assisting to working on my own projects in central London.
Thursday 8 November 2012
Ninth day at Rankin... and a few photos of Kentish Town.. and a dog! 8th November.
Took a few photos around Kentish Town today (well, between Kentish Town West station and the Studio!). It's a nice little walk as there are loads of quirky houses which hint towards the fact that you are in the borough of Camden!
It was a very busy day in the studio, we were preparing sets for a portrait shoot and video interview in the morning; so that included a lot of painting (from painting the floors to touching up on the large woorden flats), lighting candles, steaming creases from cloth/linen, and a whole menagerie of other things! Our portrait sitter and interviewer arrived and we all jumped into gear, working as a team to make the interview as effective as possible!! After the interview the portrait sitter went into styling for a few touch ups and everyone prepared for the first set by testing the lighting, finishing the set up, and tidying things up... this process repeated throughout all the sets we used. This shoot was probably one of my favourites, one of the reasons is because it was portraiture (I love a good portrait), another reason is because I've finally started to get my head around all the kit and how a shoot runs... so I think I was quite helpful in my assisting! And another reason is because the photographs from this shoot were AMAZING!
It didn't just finish at the shoot today, we then had an opening for an Exhibition by Rankin called "Bear Faced". This series is where Rankin photographed women, who are seen by many as beautiful, without any makeup on.... except a small pawprint. This is to raise awareness of a campaign to raise money for children in need.. the campaign encourages women to go without makeup for a day, have a small pawprint on their face, and raise money for the charity through this. The exhibition was great, and there was a great vibe in the gallery as people arrived, viewed the work, and connected with each other.
(Met this dog called Twinkle Toes on the tube today, she was lovely and I had to take a quick snap!).
Wednesday 7 November 2012
Day 8 at Rankin! Graffiti, Canary Warf & a Hi-Vis man. 7th November.
Another super-busy day at the Studio; the morning started with helping to finish off the set for a live music performance - film, the set design was great and really effective (wish I could show you, but you'll have to wait and see when the next issue of HungerTV comes out). The band were amazing, loved listening and watching them perform (sadly you will have to wait again because I can't really tell you who they were). During the recording I watched the camera operators and it was great to see how they worked along with the music (the lighting also went with the music), I am so excited to see the edit.. but I will have to wait till the next issue of HungerTV, it's so long away.. so I am a little bit frustrated about that, haha!
A lot of today was spend in the gallery as the exhibition opens tomorrow evening, it now looks amazing and the photographs are pretty great.. so I'm looking forward to see it in all it's glory tomorrow.
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