Every year Oxford University holds its Encaenia ceremony where honorary degrees are handed out, this year this included Sir George Martin, producer of all but one the Beatles albums and the Italian prime minister, His Excellency Giorgio Napolitano. Photographed for Oxford University events department.

I had a photobooth interview on the RideBMX website this month, go check it out! I am away next week but I will get round to putting some new photos up here soon…

My friend Sara has a new blog up and showcasing some of her amazing illustration and animation works.

I ride with Pipe almost every day so it’s really good to see him getting sponsered. Stolen Bikes recently hooked him up on their team and he is currently in Las Vegas helping out at Interbike! I shot these two photos at the local trails. They form the opening 2 pages of the 2009 catalog, stoked!

Stolen bikes website

I am happy to say I have a full page of photos in this months RideBMX UK magazine. My friend Pipe wrote the article. It’s about the struggle of dealing with the cold winter days, but seeing light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t wait to ride the jumps in the summer time!

Oxjam used a photo of mine as part of an information pack which is both in print and an online PDF. Oxjam (part of Oxfam) run a great series of gigs to raise money for charity. The Oxjam events are a good way to raise some money for a good cause, and get to see some great local bands at the same time!

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.

D1 Modelling Agency in London have featured some of my photos on the front page of their website. You can check them out on the D1 website. The Model is Abi Penhale, you can find some previous posts from shoots with her here too.

I have a shoot to put up on the blog which are featured on the D1 website based on the ‘Rock Chic’ theme. I will try and get that up later this week.

I had a couple photos in this months RideBMX magazine from the Chertsey trails fancy dress jam. Here Lima does a ’1 footed x-up seat grab’. Try saying that all at once. Lima is way too good, and is probably the most famous person ever to come from Grove/Wantage!

I am going snowboarding next week in Val Thorens, France from the 12-20th of December, I can’t wait to go! Apprently there is loads of snow, and I get to catch up with old buddies! Hope I will get some good snow pictures too.

I had a couple of photos in this months Ride BMX UK magazine. This one appeared in the Stephen Murray  fundriasing jam article which was held at Aliano’s trails. It was a fun jam and lots of money was raised for a good cause. Also the after party was at a bar called the ‘Mars Bar’, classic!

Funeral march for three males and the first female to die in the current conflicts

I got the chance to go up in a helicopter over Glastonbury and got a bird’s eye view of the festival. It was really quite a spectacle to see 180,000 people all concentrated in one area.

On our way to Glastonbury I spotted this fire, this picture appeared in the Western Daily and on the Sun online.

Home coming parade in Trowbridge for the 1 Mechanised Battalion

These are just a small selection of the photos I took during my week, there are some more below. A big thanks again to SWNS and particularly Adam Gasson for being so accommodating.