Handy portrait background when you don't really have one...

...especially if you are doing a portrait shoot in an office.

Had the camera, flashes, bounce cards and the rest but I didn't have my sheet to hand. No matter. I found the perfect background, pure white and untouched. A flipchart holder, perfect it was and as the client didn't use the white dry marker board it was unmarked.

The portrait didn't need anything doing to it just a touch of curves to take the ever-so-slight-but-I'm-a-pedant-pink cast on the skin.

Job done.

The Writers Group

During the NWLLA shoot last week I popped in to photograph the writing group. Time wasn't on my side so I kept it short. The group shot didn't take long to put together but I had another idea in my head as well.

A couple of more flashes and I could have done things differently. As my portable backdrop system (or a large sheet as it's more commonly known) was already in use there was little I could do to the background. Lightroom toned the whole thing down so it's not so noticable.

Jude Nabney and the Magic Party

Should be the name of a band...

For those of you who have seen my website the model from the fashion section is Jude Nabney, she's been called Northern Ireland's version of Agyness and very good on the catwalk. I photographed her at Belfast Fashion Week in March this year and turned out some of the best pictures in my portfolio.

On BBC2 last night, in Northern Ireland, was a programme call "The Magic Party" where someone is given a party with a DJ and magician. First in the series and the recipient of the party was Jude. Intermingled with shots of the same catwalk I was photographing.

I ended up on "NI Wags" a few months back through no fault of my own, just a snapshot of me photographing the catwalk at the 2007 Foyleside Fashion Show. It was a bad edit at that as I didn't photograph that section that they were showing, I was edited in! Everyone in the area thought I had the life of lucky man. I had to tell them different.

The programme was okay, not my cup of coffee, but I do have to say that the magician on it, Dynamo, was brilliant.

NWLLA - The community commercial shoot.

8:45am - I arrive at Northwest Lifelong Learning Association. Home to good training (I did all my bookkeeping stuff there), good coffee and excellent people. They've become firm friends over the years. Today though, it's a lot of photography in a short space of time.

• Head shots of each trainer.
• A full group shot
• A group shot of technical staff
• A group shot of office staff
• A group shot of volunteers

All this in an hour.

NWLLA is always a buzz of activity and getting the right person at the right place at the right time is difficult, nigh on impossible.

So, one training room has a sheet as a background. I kept the flash on camera with a bounce card and basically got the trainers to line up. Once a group was available I'd take them out to the front and get the group shot done.

A quick head and a notebook. Post production in lightroom to blow out the background on the portraits and the job's done. The actual shooting time was less than 45 minutes.

Jason Bell Photography Youtube Channel

Oh I finally caved in.....

http://uk.youtube.com/user/jasonbellphotography

I experimented with putting a small slideshow together of the Foyle Fashion Week images and narrowing down from 400+ final images to 23 for a slideshow was hard work. My only gripe now is the quality of the images coming out, something about video resolution when I upload the video I think.

Happy enough for a first attempt but if anyone has a clues on making those video images SHARP then I'd love to hear from you.

The Lawyers of Limavady

My final photocall of Friday night was with the gathering of the Limavady legal community, it was a retirement dinner and it was a dickie bow do.

So 19 lawyers, one large table in a smallish room. Oh you have to laugh. One of the hotel staff passed and I went up to him, "is there anyway we can move this table?". He just looked and laughed, "I'm afraid not". That was the end of that. I did a quick check in the viewfinder, it looked okay with the table cloth in so I went for it.

Arranging two groups of nine, putting the retiree in the middle, wasn't such a bad move on my part. And considering that I had less than five minutes to get the shot done, I was happy with it. The table cloth ended up being a useful reflector from the underside just lifting the shadows out of all those chins.

Thank goodness for tables cloths.

The eye test

I had my 18 month eye test today, not too sure what to expect but I was getting some odd results from one of my cameras and I didn't know if it was me or not. So I thought I better get it checked out.

Instead of my right focusing eye getting worse from over use, it's actually getting better and the new lens is not as strong. Surprised me for sure. I'm definately happy about it.

Current reading: Richard Branson - Business Stripped Bare

My daughter was desperate to get something for my birthday. The Doug Wimbish CD's had arrived from my parents, my sis sent the guitar clock so all in all I was already happy.

Little one and my beloved had been plotting which involves whispering and giggling. At 3:30am (see that, AM, the morning) Little one was so excited she woke up and wanted to give me my first present, a pair of Sharpie pens, with the extra fine nibs that I haven't been able to find. The other present (which came at a more manageable 7:30am) was the new book by Richard Branson. I've got three books by Branson and they are all brilliant.

A good day.