Been working on a big project. This is a behind the scenes test shot from it, more to come in February!

I am back from travels in Asia, I went with my girlfrind Fiona for a month and visited Singapore, Thailand and Laos. I took a lot of photos, and I am hoping to have some kind of exhibition later in the year. In the mean time I will put some up here once I have edited them!

Before going away I had a portrait session with Anthony Whitehead. Anthony is a man with a story to tell. Having survived cancer in his teens he has gone on to perform in a variety of settings for the Teenage Cancer Trust, including the Royal Albert Hall. His first album is coming out in the next few months.

He is originally from Oxfordshire, but is currently living in Brighton. I have known him since I was 5 years old so it was fun to do a portrait session with him. I picked a location in the Oxfordshire/Berkshire Downs to show his country side up-bringing. For this shot no flash was used to get silhouette from the sun.

One flash from the left was used with a tight beam to catch just a thin strip of grass.

This is the setup shot for the photo below, though slightly later in the evening when the sun had dropped lower. Canon 580ex mk II and 430ex flashes on full power triggered by skyport radio triggers. I used Canon 70-200mm F/2.8 for nearly all the shots as it gives lovley out of focus backgrounds and is very sharp. Out in the open countryside space there is plenty of room to stand back and shoot from a distance.

Two flashes were used for this shot, one for the main light and one to give a slight rim light to his left as described above. I am also just finishing off a website for Anthony, I will post about it when it is finished.

I recently photographed a set of photos for an Oxford based band Invisible Vegas. I really enjoyed the project because the band gave me quite a free reign on the kind of shots they wanted. I found a great location in Oxfordshire by a river and with an old barn in the grounds. For this shot I used Elinchrom mono-block heads plugged into a portable battery pack. This gave me the freedom to be away from the usual mains power restrictions. I used two flashes to the left and right of the camera and the standard 45 degrees reflectors on the strobes.

Getting the background right meant that the timing of the shot was important as I wanted to capture it at dusk to get a ‘moody’ sky. I used a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second to retain good detail in the clouds and sky. The logs were already there, we just moved them around a little to provide small platforms for each of the band members.

After the outside shoot we moved into the old warehouse to get some closer shots of the band, showing their faces. This shot was lit with three lights, one above the camera through a white umbrella and then two strobes behind and to the side to give rim lights.

This shot was taken with a shoot through umbrella and then a flash behind the band members which creates a back light to the band, and also create the shadow coming out from their feet.

This shot was lit again with two rim lights and one main light above the camera.

Here’s a set-up shot of the band after we had finished the shoot. You can see the two rim lights to the left and right of the picture and the main light high and in the middle but without the umbrella which was attached for the shoot. As we were working inside and had access to the mains power I didn’t have to use a battery pack for these later shots.

Invisible Vegas will next be playing the 02 Academy, Oxford on the 27th May 2009.

Just a quick post of Tilly jumping up in the air on the roof of a garage! Setup shot here. I wasn’t quite sure if it was strong enough to hold us, let alone jump on it! Held up in the end though

Elinchrom 500 as main light through softbox, and 250 head with reflector for rim/hair. Innovatronix battery pack used to power the flashes

I have all most finished a massive load of editing photos so I should be able to post some of those photos up here

Liam ‘Lima’ Eltham needed some photos to go on his BMX sponsor’s websites; Fox Racing. Thanks to a bit of scouting by me and some of my BMX friends a fantastic location near Oxford was found. A small lake in a nature reserve was used as the location. I choose to do the shoot just before sunset so that the sky, balanced with flash would be a beautiful dark blue colour.

There was a rock in the lake which was just below water level which gives the effect of Liam floating just above the water! I used 3 flashes to light Liam and make him stand out from the background. This image was shot on the Sigma 10-20mm, this allows you to get very close to the subject and get lots of the sky in the shot.

All the pictures are also linked to Flickr, just click on them to visit the Flickr page to post comments on them.

The reflections produced were almost a perfect copy of the scene which really adds interest to the image. The rest of the shoot was shot with a Canon 70-200mm F/2.8

After a while to try some different ideas I got some of my friends to throw rocks into the lake at Liam! Liam is a tough guy and didn’t mind the freezing water, too much… The flash freezes the water droplets perfectly.

The Fox jacket kept Liam warm, but his shoes were pretty soaked by this point!

Setup shots

Lighting diagram

Here’s a set-up shot of the lighting for one of the shots. Each blue circle is where a flash was placed. The Elinchrom skyport radio triggers allow me to be a good distance away fromt the subject, but not worry about trailing wires to fire the flashes.

The lighting diagram shows the set-up for the below shot.

This was the photograph that was picked to be used on the Fox Team page, it can be seen here:

http://www.foxhead.com/us/bmx/team/?id=15056

I used a strong rim light  for this shot to separate Liam from the background. [A rim light is the light that produces the white line along the left side of his body]. The water droplets are frozen by the fast flash duration, as is the motion of his body making Liam appear to float. It was a fun shoot, a big thanks to Liam for being open to trying ideas!

Feel free to ask any more question in the comments section below.

I find it’s always a good idea to work with a concept when taking on a fashion shoot. This test shoot was to the theme of ‘Rock Chic’.

The shoot was all done in my studio near Oxford with one or two studio strobe mono blocks, depending on the shot (Elinchrom 250 and 500 head). Most of the shots were with just one Elinchrom 500 head with a shoot through umbrella, some shots used a soft box too. The great thing about a shoot though umbrella is that it is very portable, though it didn’t really matter in this instance it just creates a nice light.

This shot was taken at F/6.3, 1/100 second, 55mm at ISO 100. This create just enough depth of field that all of the face is in focus but the hair starts to go out of focus.

I wanted to create a really graphic image and the black cables against the white background achieve this.

A little look at the behind the scenes setup, note the fan heater essential to keep the model happy! I fire the strobe heads with Elinchrom Skyports radio triggers, this reduces the number of cables to trip over around the studio and allows me to move around the studio freely.

We had a lot of fun smashing up an old record, again the contrast of the stark black against the white background works to create an effective high contrast image.

I have included several more shots in the gallery below, please click on a thumbnail to view them larger.Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below

Since I did this shoot I have produced prints of these photos, if you are interested please contact me.

A few weeks ago I had a fun fashion shoot with Caleb in the streets just outside of the centre of Oxford. This shot was lit with one Canon 580ex flash through a shoot through umbrella to the camera left, and then a Vivitar 285 also to the left but further back as a rim light. I used a shutter speed of 1/250 of a second to reduce the background light as much as possible, just leaving the moody lighting setup.

To try and explain this here’s a little lighting diagram:

Caleb bridge photography lighting setup shot

The flash Speedlites were trigger by Elinchrom Skyports, shot on Canon 40D.

I used one Canon 580ex flash through a shoot through umbrella to light this one. I really meant to take some setup shots for this shoot, but I forgot. I really need to remember to do that more often! The flash was to the camera right. Anyway here’s another flash lighting diagram.

Caleb photography lighting setup shot

I used a slightly longer shutter speed of 1/100 of a second this time to allow a little more background ambient light to come through and light the pillars around Caleb, yet retaining the moody feel to the photo.

So this is the first time I have posted lighting diagrams, feel free to leave comments about them.

Last week had a fun shoot with Jim to photograph 19 different types of leather jackets for Black Scissor tailoring. I have put a couple of my favourites up here, each jacket was shot from 3 different angles.

Leather jackets are not an item of clothing which I normally wear but there were some really nice designs in the collection.

The client had asked for an urban look for the shoot, and found a great location, a dis-used housing estate just outside of Cardiff.

There were so many cool places to shoot, it made the whole process really fun. A big thanks to Jim for modelling at short notice and doing a stellar job!

I always forget to get set-up shots, but here is one for once! Each jacket had quite different features which needed to be captured. I used a mixture of natural sunlight and strobe for the shoot, depending on the particular location. Here two flashes are being used.

If you would like to purchase a jacket, you can go on Black Scissor tailoring‘s website. Next week I will be in Bristol taking photos, looking forward to that.