Last week I shot some marketing photos for the guys who run Scaresville here in Suffolk. Scaresville is a haunted village set up each October in the grounds of Kentwell Hall.
Read MoreWET WEATHER SHOOT
Quite often, as an editorial portrait photographer I can't pick and choose my location or the weather conditions. One of the fun challenges is making the most of the conditions in front of me.
Yesterday I had a shoot booked in with the lovely Katie Bedford who represents England at over 50s hockey. Fortunately, the all-day rain stopped for the 30 minutes when we had the shoot booked. But conditions were very dark due to the heavy cloud and overcast sky. Therefore, I decided to go for a more dramatic portrait look.
Most of the time when I use lighting, I want it to be subtle and almost unnoticeable as in the three examples below.
However, when I'm looking for a dramatic feel to the portrait I aim for the lighting to be obvious. It makes the subject stand out from the background, as with these photos...
The photos of Katie, who heads off to Holland tomorrow for the Masters European Championships, certainly fit into the latter category.
Gardens by the Bay, Singapore
Gardens by the Bay Shoot and Editing
Just before Christmas my good friend Stuart Jenner (www.stuartjennerphotography.com) and I headed down to Marina Bay and took some shots of Gardens by the Bay. The 'golden hour' in Singapore is more like a golden 3 minutes, so you have to be ready to catch the few moments of good light, if it comes at all. So we stood about chatting like a couple of camera bores with beers in hand and cameras poised on tripods, waiting for the perfect blue sky.
It didn't really get very blue but we took some shots anyway. A few minutes later we were scoffing Japanese food and refreshing ourselves with a bucket of Asahi after a tough 3 minutes work. Job well done.
I took a a few shots in an attempt to create a panorama which I would stitch together later in Photoshop. The original four shots looked like this...
Nothing special really. But I thought I'd give it a go in Photoshop anyway. Well, actually all I did was select the images in Lightroom, right click and choose EDIT IN > MERGE TO PANORAMA IN PHOTOSHOP. Photoshop did the rest and creating a great panorama. I then saved the panorama back to Lightroom where I spent sometime making it look pretty. I think the result is not too bad considering I'd had a few beers when I took it. Thanks Photoshop, thanks Lightroom. You rock!
Shooting info: Tripod, shutter release, Nikon D800, 70-200mm nikkor lens at 70mm, ISO 160, f16, blend of 4 images (10s, 13s, 15s 25s). Aperture Priority.
Back to school...
I'm just packing up for my first school shoot of the academic year. Tomorrow I'll be shooting two events at Tanglin Trust School here in Singapore. Both the schools that use me have booked me in for plenty of shoots so it should be nice and busy for the next few months.
All Saints Church, Otterhampton, Somerset
My step-father-in-law volunteers for a great organisation, The Churches Conservation Trust, a charity saving at-risk historic churches. He took us to visit All Saints, a church which is no longer in regular use, but is well-maintained and has some interesting features, including a large oil painting and a rickety old organ. The visit was a great opportunity to test the low-light capabilities of my shiny new Nikon D800 and it performed pretty well I think, looking at the images below.