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.
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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
A few essentials
My mobile studio all set up
A cropped image straight out of camera.
Bradgate Park is a very popular location in Leicestershire.
I had a shoot booked there on Sunday morning at 10am, even at that time the car park was nearly full! I spotted two groups, one was obviously a fitness/running group and the other was a dog group.. I stopped counting after 40 dogs!
I was booked by Jon to capture some nice in the moment images of his daughter Mia, and try to get her to smile!
The main path that runs all the way through the park was very busy, so we headed to the ruins, near some rocks and to some picnic benches... basically anywhere there was no distracting people!
The hour shoot went very well and lots of nice images were captured, even caught a smile or two ;-)
On Sunday 1st November 2015 myself, wife & daughter went for a walk around Knighton Park.
I checked the time for local sunset and as it was getting pretty close I figured i'd take the Camera along. Truth be told, I only took 5 photos that evening as I was enjoying the walk.
Our local paper the Leicester Mercury had an 'Autumn in Colour' page on their website, with a link asking viewers to submit their photo's. So I thought why not, on the Friday morning I emailed a copy in to them. Thirty minutes later an editor from the paper gave me a call, asking for some more information on it and if it was ok to publish it.. in the paper!!
Of course I agreed.
I don't buy the paper that often, hardly at all in fact as most of the content I like they put online.
On the 12th November I purchased the paper randomly, before then i'd been asking family to keep an eye out for it. To my surprise, it was in that edition, what a bizarre coincidence.
I had many amazing comments about this image, and a friend of mine who is also an excellent photographer suggested I have this printed to canvas. It's now hanging on my bedroom wall so I can see it every day.
A local Nursery gave me a call early December, their usual photographer had let them down for their Winter Wonderland event. I was very happy to help out!
The entire 4 hours was spent in Santa’s Grotto, over 100 children were seen by the incredible Father Chrismas! All children received a gift and a printed photo.
