College Fashion Show 2013

I was given the opportunity to photograph Burton and South Derbyshire college's end of the year/term exhibition and fashion show this year at Burton Town Hall

Shown here are just a small selection of fashion show images that I have produced on the night. I was commissioned to shoot the images for the college's archives which will be used for future reference to be viewed by student's staff and interested party's

All of the images were produced using a Canon 5D3 camera with no flash just using ambient light at an ISO of 4000

It's just amazing what these cameras can achieve now and the results can be exceptional without the slightest hint of noise in your photographs

Evening ambient light shoot with Studio lights on location

I was asked by a local model to produce a set of images of herself modelling different clothes which she wants to use to help her to promote her business and modelling career

This was a dual purpose shoot with the model which encompassed combining fashion and product photography in one evening's work

She particularly wanted some really good promo images taking of the red dress she was wearing for use in marketing campaigns to push her business and gain awareness

These will be the last images shot on this course as I will be concentrating more on finishing off all my blogs which will include labeling,adding more content and  adding additional images I have already shot

Shown here are my latest images from the evening shoot shot locally with my model helen. This was a TFP shoot where we both benefited from the photography 

The images were shot with my new Lencarta Safari portable studio light system that I took out on location with me. This was an evening shoot and I had specifically planed this shoot at this time to capture the ambiance of the summer evening skies

The setup cost a me over a £1000 at the time and I thought am I doing the right thing spending this amount of money on a portable lighting setup. But yes I think I can safely justify the costs as I am starting to achieve some really good results which can be seen from some of the images below

The setup allows me to shoot up to 600 watts out on location and even at 200 watts the unit delivers over 2300 pops from a single charge,amazing. Having this amount of power enabled me to shoot even with bright sunny skies as I was able to counter balance the light intensity from the sun and overpower the daylight with my studio heads

I had to consider the health and safety of my model at all times. We had blankets on hand for my model to use between shots when posing as the eveing was getting a little chilly
My model was also using a step ladder in certain shots but I had a collegeue and lighting man on hand during the whole shoot who helped getting my model up and down the steps

I wanted to mix ambient light with a studio quality light out on location and this system allows me to achieve this. I shot and metered the images for the ambient light available then introduced power from the flash heads in increments until the desired effect was achieved. i wanted to use a second flash head as a rim light to light the models hair and side physique. I found I didn't need the second head as the sun did an excellent job for me which can be seen from the top image below 


I had planned this shoot for a long time and had to wait for the right day with the right weather and cloud formations to achieve the desired results. I used photoshop and Bridge to manipulate an embellish my final images chosen from about 200 shots.

The images are now being used in E-commerce and marketed on various websites,social media websites and also used in publicity materials for advertising and promotions
Shown here are some of the images from the shoot

I have slightly sharpened the images in photoshop and cloned out unwanted articles such as telegraph poles and pylons which were a distraction in the images

Shown below is an screen shot of an advert of my model Helen advertising her services on the modelling agency website Purpleport using my images

I will be using a lot of the images produced on this shoot for my own continuing marketing plan which I use to sell my services and products. These will be included on  my website,blogs and printed media to push and advertise my business to greater levels

Shown below are some of the images I used for research and ideas which were copied fron the Internet

Kids in a sweet shop (FA sports week)

College disability sports coaching shoot

Well what an opportunity to photograph at St Geoges park again.We have to thank all the staff at Burton College who made this opportunity possible.This was an opportunity for photography students to photograph some of the country's top best known footballers,managers, and famous faces from the FA and the the premiership football league

On this occasion we were given a fantastic opportunity to use some of Canon's high end L series lenses which ranged in six from 200-600mm. These were supplied on a loan basis to the college from one of Canon's many suppliers Calumet

We were all working to a brief to capture on camera all aspects of a disability coaching experience given to able bodied persons which enabled them to experience the difficulties disabled people have when trying to play different sports

We used these lenses specifically for their long range capabilities which enabled us to get amongst the action and shoot from touchlines to the other end of the pitch.These lenses are essential for this type of photography which can capture fine detail form a vast distance

Along with these lenses we were using Canon top end 1DX cameras which have a fantastic frame rate per second. These cameras are capable of shooting up to 14 FPS in raw format which is essential for recording fast action in a sports environment

We were given a certain time frame to produce the images so it was essential to work to a well planned brief and action plan

Shown in the photo's here are some of the course attendees wearing blindfolds which enabled them to experience what it is actually like to play different sports when you are blind or disabled

These were the lenses we used on the day:

                                       500 mm F4  IS L Series prime
                                       400 mm F2.8 IS L Series prime
                                       200-400 mm L Series F4 IS USM  Zoom
                                       70-200mm L Series 2.8 IS USM Zoom

Shown here are some of the shots taken during the day using the lenses at apertures of F2.8 and F4 which produced some fantastic results. The clarity of these lenses is second to none and the "bokeh" produced by the lens is awesome which makes your subject stand out from it's background

Shown here is a shot of myself using one of the lenses a 200-400 Zoom

Shown here is the price taken from an average website

The lenses were extremely heavy and it was essential to use a mono pod to take the weight of the lenses.This also eliminated camera shake and camera blur enabling constant crystal clear images to be taken throughout the day

Shown here is our tutor Steve Davies along with various students from our college showing off a selection of the lenses used throughout the day

                           

Shown below are some of the lenses being packed away for transportation. The lenses came in very sturdy well padded cases which were essential for protection and transportation. These lenses have to be handled with extreme care as the cost of some of them is in the region of up to £12,000 + each

The images we produced on the day will be used for marketing and publicity purposes to bring attention and awareness of dissabilty in sport. The images have now been published and showcased on the website flicker and other online websites

Film Noir (Image manipulation)

I was commissioned by a friend to shoot some images of a 30th birthday party. I was given a brief to produce some old style images and the theme of the party was 20's 30's film noir night,which roughly translates to old black and white films and characters from this era.The party goers were all dressed as different characters from this era in time and I was asked to manipulate the images to possibly reflect and emulate this era in time

The images were all shot in a local hotel.The images were shot with a Canon 5D3 and a Canon 430 speedlight. The ceiling of the hotel was very low so I bounced the flash to give an even spread of light to eluminate my subjects

I mainly used photoshop for this procedure using various layers to change the images structures. I firstly desaturated the images to black and white then added a texture from my library of textured images to give the images an aged feel

I used a third party piece of software which has some in built filters to shift the focal point of the image of centre to another part of the image and also added a blurred vignette to the edges of the images

Shown here are the finished images which I think portray the 1920's-30's era that my client requested

Shown below are the original images shot on the night before manipulation

I have also included some screen grabs of the meta data taken from the images which shows aperture, shutter speeds and other data that my camera was using at the time when the images were shot

Shown here are some more screen grabs of the techniques that I used to desaturate and blend layers together in Photoshop to give my images a sort of old/worn appearance, I think the technique works quite well

Shown below here is a screen grab taken from Bridge of some of my textures that I use to add to my images. I have a library of textures which I collect and add to and it's amazing how many different textures there are out there if you just open your eyes and look for them

The texture I used in the images above here was taken from a very old tree which had some interesting patterns,shadows and grooves,which when desaturated produces the ideal layer to give my images an old /worn look

Shown below are some of the images I used for ideas and inspiration for this project.These were general images taken from the Internet which gave me posing ideas, information on hairstyles and ideas to create the ambiance of the images

The final images were sent to print at an online print processor named Loxley Colour one of the best online photo printers in the business. The prints were requested in various sizes and printed on an extreme matt paper which gave the images an authentic look and feel which the client was really please with. The images were then mounted in a photographic album of the clients choice and presented to my client as the finished article