Archives for June 2011

Sunshine On A Rainy Day (Well A Little!!)

This week I took delivery of a new piece of kit that I had been scouting around for for quite some time, a Bowen’s Gemini strobe together with a Travelpak.  I’d been keeping an eye on several of these over the past few months but they always seemed to attract a high price on EBay.  They say patience is a virtue and it certainly was in this case as I managed to pick up a set in great condition for a really good price so I was a very happy chappy 🙂 .  As a guy with a new toy I was dying to try them out and was lucky enough to have a shoot with Eve set up for the following weekend.  I have worked with Eve several times now (link to last shoot) and I’m always delighted with the images we produce and this time proved to be no exception.  We headed for the coast on what proved to be a rather dull and overcast day and quickly abandoned the bikini shots we had in mind (this is the NE coast of England!!) and Plan B was to shoot something a little more commercial / fashion style.  During the course of the morning we shot at 3 different locations, interspersed with get warm and bacon sandwich stops.  There was a bit of a breeze blowing in from the sea so I was extra careful to make sure that the light stand was well weighted down with some strategically placed rocks to prevent the whole thing blowing over.  With a 1m 10cm Brollybox attached I was able to shoot at about f5.6 to f8 with the 400W strobe on about 3/4 power.  Recycling time was pretty good at about 2 seconds and the power meter had hardly moved after shooting a couple of hundred shots, so all round I was really happy with the way it performed and the quality of light it produced.  As always Eve was an absolute pleasure to work with, great fun but also totally professional.  I really like the feel of these images and look forward to using the kit again on future projects I have planned for the summer, considering adding a second strobe too for some ideas I have.

Elite Magazine Photoshoot With Nikki Little

Recently I got a message from Fraser Mutch, one of the main men over at Elite magazine, asking about the possibility of shooting some images of model Nikki Little for the June edition.  Nikki is someone who I have been fortunate enough to work with a few times over the last couple of years and I was delighted to get the chance to do so again.  Nikki had entered a competition with the magazine to be their Model of the Month and polled the most votes from the readers.  This was no great suprise to me as she is such an accomplished model with a great look and the portfolio to match.  We got our heads together and came up with a few ideas that we would like to work on and met up at Banana Studio for the photoshoot to try and bring them to life.  We had three hours to get the images we needed for the publication which seems like a long time but in reality with make up and clothing changes the time just flies by.  During the course of the shoot we tried several different lighting patterns to go with the outfit changes to try and give some variety to the images and showcase Nikki’s versatility.  I think we pretty much achieved this goal although we did run out of time on the last idea we had which involved a really athletic pose from Nikki and a lighting set up which i couldn’t get just right, perhaps that is one for next time!!  Having said that there was one real stand out image on the day for me where Nikki nailed the strong, athletic pose and I managed to capture it in just the way I wanted.  It was an absolute pleasure working with Nikki again, such a friendly outgoing model but thoroughly professional with it.  Thanks also to Eric and his staff at Banana and also to Nikki’s Mum who was on hand at all times to help out which was very much appreciated.

 

Tripping The Light Fantastic

Sometimes in life things just seem to fall into place and just work, Tuesday this week was a prime example of this for me.  Siobhan (better known as Bob or Roberto!!) had been trying to organise a shoot with me for some time but as we wanted to do something location based we really wanted the weather to be right so we had several abortive attempts to make it happen.  The weather was so good this week that we just decided to go for it and despite a few spots of rain on the drive up to Tynemouth it turned out to be a gorgeous evening and the light was just fantastic.  Bob is such a creative soul,  she had a range of outfits prepared and a set of inspirational images to work from, so that despite the short notice we were pretty well prepared for what we wanted to achieve.  We did a recce up and down the beach at Tynemouth and planned a few different areas where we wanted to shoot, after that it was pretty full on making the most of the location, light and Roberto’s extensive wardrobe!!  We worked our way along the beach, climbed like mountain goats along the cliffs and used the old outdoor swimming pool that had some great backdrops.  Three hours later we were finished with a real sense of satisfaction of a job well done.  The only let down was  being kept going “please just one more set!!” by the promise of the best fish and chips in the area which were conveniently forgotten when we had finished 😛  To be fair her boyfriend did come to the rescue with a tasty burger which really hit the spot.  Lots of good images still to come from this shoot, please come back to this post as there will be further additions to the gallery.