Tim Ferris, next stop New York.

Former Constitution writer (he of the "Limelite" fame) is heading off to New York. He dropped by on Wednesday for a few shots to take with him. It was a good session, get 'em talking about what they love and they go real natural in front of the camera. All I had to ask Tim was what he was listening to at the moment.... shot after shot after shot after shot.

North West's What To Wear

Rapidly approaching on June 12th and is being held at Lush in Portrush, tickets are available from the usual outlets and retailers in the Coleraine area. As well the catwalk (yup I'll be up a step ladder again) I did the poster shots (the ones for Dumb Blonde Productions).

The wind, the rain, the Portrush weather just tried to kick our backsides but we were having non of it. Ultimate cheers to Ashling who just didn't let the weather phase her at all and just got on with, every ten shots or so I'd call for the blanket.

Though you can't really see it those clouds are coming in fast and they looking pretty dark. I just called out "last two shots" and as I pressed the shutter for the last shot a single drop of rain hit my eyelid, game over.

I can't wait to see the posters though, always perks the spirit to see your own stuff being used.

Getting Married In Northern Ireland magazine.

And now for the good news, there's a picture of Don and Natassia in the lastest issue of Getting Married In Northern Ireland magazine, it's out now.

Go have a quick sneaky peak at page 174 when you are in the newsagents next :) and the buy the magazine.

Don & Natassia

Gimmicks eh! Good marketing more like.

One of my flickr contacts had put some images up and they were all generated by a website called http://www.photofunia.com/.

Select the setting you want and then select an image of yours you want splattered onto it. It's actually good fun, more than having a good photographic use.

How to turn Portrush weather into summer.

Portrush, the golden jewel of the North Coast. Known for it's rare sun, rare temperatures, motorbikes and Barry's Amusements. For kids the world over it's a BIG deal to get there.

As ever I keep an eye on the forecast which was cloudly, the odd rain shower but dry. Wrong. Over the Coleraine mountain there was a lot of rain, it was just trying to figure out which way it was going.... Portrush direction from my guessing.



When I arrived most of the crew (see above) were already there. All those people for one model, it was a good laugh as well, which always helps. Once latte's were consumed it was down to work. Now Ashleen was a total star considering that the temperature was not exactly the best, plus she has a small audience in the form of restaurant goers peering out of the window. Not to mention that it was practise lap night for the Northwest 200 so there were motorbikes everywhere apart from where we were.

In the car was my light kit: Sigma flash, Nikon Speedlight, Fuji S5 Pro, monopod, reflectors, two banks of 5ft striplights and a lot of gels, plus a laptop and lot of A clamps, muslins and assorted light shaping stuff. Come prepared! I hardly used any of it. In fact the one that was left on the living room floor at home was possible the one thing I needed.

So, how do you turn Portrush drab light into summer, half cut CTO over the Nikon Speedlight did the trick nicely. And with Ashleen having ginger hair the CTO just lifted everything up nicely, she was totally professional and didn't moan once, in fact I made more of a fuss by making her wear a blanket every five minutes and when I needed to setup the next shot.

I'm not going to put any images up until the posters are done for the catwalk show.

Lush & Dumb Blondes.

Ooooh you could read that wrong couldn't you? Dumb Blonde Productions is a new fresh faced and enthused client. So we all got together at Lush nightclub in Portrush to talk catwalk and promo materials. Now I personally think I'm a bit beyond the nightclub sort of things, I don't do loud noises very well any more (unless I'm making them via guitars).

Sunday afternoon, now you can imagine what a nightclub will be like the day after the night before.

Shooting wise I enjoyed myself, even though it wasn't a proper shoot just testing out locations, backgrounds and different ideas. It's a lovely building with different bars, locations and backgrounds and I could have walked around for a lot longer but a few of the rooms were locked. Ah well.


These gold cylinder like padded pillars were my favourite as they give a sense of shape. Georgina is the client but she didn't mind being the model for the hour while I tested a load of stuff out.

The problem with nightclubs, light, not the lack of but the amount of. Ontop of this is the varying types of light which kick around all sorts of colour casts. How do you control all that, well you just hang on for dear life and get on with it. During the evening I managed to put the question to Joe McNally who graciously gave me a few minutes of his time while sat in the airport. If anyone knows anything about light it's Joe...

To compensate I rigged up the new popular fashion light, two gangs of two 5ft flurescent tubes, couldn't get 5000K daylight balanced only 3500K ones but fine balancing the white balance is something I enjoy.

I'm really looking forward to the proper shoot now, and it's great to welcome Dumb Blonde Productions as a new client.

Photo Pro Magazine sub with 50% off.

There are only two manazines that I actually go out and buy when it comes to photography, Photo Pro Magazine and Professional Photography. Photo Pro is doing a 50% subscription deal at the moment, sounds like a good deal to me.

Click here for more details.

Danny Boy Finale - The Paperboys and Ian Smith.

For any photog there's waiting involved. For some reason with gigs in Limavady it seems to be an awful lot longer. The 8pm kick off turning out to be 8:30pm (I was not alone in making that mistake) and the lights were just below (they looked great for the stage) anything I could shoot within in the realms with. Even with my new shiny Manfrotto monopod it just never quite made the mustard for me.

So while the other photogs and video were more bothered about shooting Ian Smith live, who was excellent, I made friends with the promoter and got ten precious minutes with The Paperboys.

My personal brief is simple: "Take the best shots you can, do your reshoot while you are here.". It just means I have all bases covered. The group shot was easy enough to do, then came the suggestion from me to do some headshots.... they loved the idea and we had a good five minutes left. I left my background up in the hallway of the hotel and then caught Ian Smith on his way out and took three minutes to photograph him.

Thirty seconds to get a grab shot of Peter Jack with a bright red Canada top and I was gone.

My timeplan went something along the lines of:

7.00pm - Leave the house
7.15pm - Arrive at the venue
7.30pm - Talk to festival committee for a bit.
7.35pm - Look like a billy no mates numpty.
8.10pm - People start to file in, some talk to me (I think they feel sorry for the billy no mates with the camera).
8.40pm - Ian Smith goes on stage. Live shots are not up to much, anything with flash kills the feel.
8.45pm - Chat to the promoter, promised band for ten minutes very soon.
9.20pm - All five members of the band are in the hall at the same time, so I whisk them off to a side corridor to do the shoot.
9.30pm - All done with The Paperboys, Ian Smith comes offstage.
9.35pm - Shoot Ian Smith in less than two minutes.
9.40pm - Leave the venue, quick grab shot of the festival chairman with a bright red garment on.
9.45pm - I'm outta here.
10.00pm - Coffee in hand.

Sound advice....

“If you’re going to take a picture, really try to make it the best picture you’ve ever taken, every time. Always strive for the best you can do.” This level of professionalism requires that you live, breathe and eat photography, and that every step along the way is executed with great attention to—what else—the details. “If you want to be a photographer,” he advises, “Be a photographer ten hours a day instead of spending five hours retouching some half-ass picture you don’t like in the first place.”

Martin Schoeller was talking to Charlie Rose for a piece in Resource Magazine. I'm actually having more fun upping my game at the moment. Doing things how I want to do things and not just with an attitude of "it's only for the paper"....

Photographing Abbatastic - turning a less ordinary venue into a studio.

Now let's be honest, Limavady Football Club is not the most glitzy venue to a) perform and b) photograph. So I spent the day thinking about how to photograph tribute band Abbatastic. Press photographers don't usually carry a large bunch of gear around with them: camera and flash gun basically (it's on camera to keep things really simple) and a notebook. For some things it's the best way, cheque presentations and the rest. For Abbatastic we have to turn things round a little bit.

So, in the car. My 1.5m x 2m black collapsable background and a few white reflectors. An SB-600 with a bounce card, and a camera - my Fuji S5 Pro.

The job doesn't start at 8pm, it starts at 5.30pm with a quick scan of the internet to see if the band are online. Double whammy blessing is a mobile number so I call the band asking if I can do some specific shots and can they be ready, dressed for as near as 8:15pm as possible. Next is a quick scan of the internet to see what covers Abba have done. A quick look at the "Definitive Collection" cover looks good: can be setup quick and it doable with what we have. More to the point I don't have quick access to a helicopter to do the "Arrival" cover. So my point of reference is defined, all I have to do is introduce myself and do the picture.



Brown Sugar are supporting and I know these guys they are a breeze to photograph, plus you just get festival chairman Peter Jack in the picture (white suit, white wall, perfect) and we're done.

I do the Abbatastic shots in the dressing room (it's actually the Limavady Utd boardroom), background up and young roadie Eamonn is immediately roped to be my assistant and VAL (voice activated lightstand). Now all I have to say to the band is "can we do something like the Definitive Collection" cover and before you know it Bernice has everyone in place. So two minutes to setup, a minute for a test shot and two minutes to arrange everyone.

So the shot for the paper takes no time at all, looks great and (more to the point) will be different to any of the press guys and the coucil photographer. Just takes a little bit of effort and (where possible) a phone call. So with the other ten minutes I photograph the rest of the band.



All you need is 15 minutes and little bit of planning.

It keeps things interesting if you are a press photog, the same type of pics can actually starting to wear you down. It all depends how creative you want to be. Obviously there are times you are never going to get to do all this. I've just decided to up my game, a lot.

Danny Boy Festival time again.

Well it actually kicked off last night. I've got involved at the eleventh hour due to some information I was given. So I'm off shooting for my client.

Bob Carlos Clarke retrospective.

Still my favourite photographer hands down. The Guardian have put a nine photo preview of the exhibition that will show at The Little Black Gallery (from 8th May through to the 3rd July). The Little Black Gallery was put together by Ghislain Pascal, Lindsey Carlos Clarke and Tamara Beckwith. There's also a permenant exhibition at Marco Pierre White's restaurant, Luciano's.

The exhibition coincides with the release of Exposure: The Unusual Life and Violent Death of Bob Carlos Clarke by Simon Garfield.

Links:
Bob Carlos Clarke
The Little Black Gallery
Link to Amazon for the book.

One of the best shoots I've ever had.

The last twelve months seem to have blessed me with some of the best shoots I've done. Yesterday was excellent though everyone's first though for a wedding: "what's the weather like?".

Now the Met office don't always get it right no matter how many "it's supposed to clear up by 1pm" sentences I heard the rain didn't let up all day. From the moment I started shooting at 11am until I stopped at 10pm. Always have a "plan B" is my motto, so we rolled out plan B with immediate effect.

Off camera flash was the order of the day, the formals and bride/groom portraits were all done in the church after the service. Once the larger formals were done I spent 30 minutes with the couple, "can you hold this high please" I asked and a semi bemused Groom held my SB-600 as high as he could. Hey presto, simulated daylight coming through the window of the church, with a bounce card the light spread nicely. Same again but with me shooting from the balcony and Nikon's CLS kicked in no problems at all (I'm sure glad Fuji kept CLS in the S5 Pro).

I'll post some pictures up soon but I want the bride and groom to see everything first.

Wedding Shoot pre flight checks....

I tend to lock myself in my office with everything I need before a wedding shoot. Then the pre flight checks begin.

1. Charge every battery you have for cameras.
2. Fresh batteries in both flashguns.
3. Fong Lightsphere ALWAYS goes on the Sigma, no exceptions.
4. Clean all lenses.
5. Make sure the camera bodies are clean as well.
6. Revise the list of shots I have to do.
7. Double check my timing plan. Church to formals to Bride & Groom shots to Reception. Played out in my head many times over.
8. Shirt ironed and suit ready.
9. Business cards in pocket.
10. Check the weather for tomorrow.
11. Make sure there's enough petrol in the car.

A great way to learn lighting...

..is to look at what everyone else is up to. Whether that be reading Strobist, trying to get inside the head of Joe McNally etc.

Trade Secret Cards now have a collection of lighting related cards. The picture on one side and the diagram of how it was done on the other. It's an excellent idea.

You can read the Strobist post here.

The incline to 2010 begins here.

I'm off to join the British Institute of Professional Photographers today, I'm actually quite excited.

From crisis through to resolve

For the last couple of weeks I hit a real creative rut. Horrible it was too. In hindsight it's good to go through these things. A complete month of downtime with the camera wasn't what I had in mind but it was a great way to do things.

Yesterday was a major turning point when I watch Zack Arias video that he did for Scott Kelby's guest blogger segment. As I've been busy with other things over the last few weeks I haven't really had chance to look at photographic blogs or the like.

If you are in creative industry, Zack's video is a must see.

Hot Shoe Diaries.... finally pre ordered mine.

I couldn't hold off any longer and Amazon have a very good pre order price.

There's a sample chapter here if you want to have a look. You can even order it here if you like.
The Hot Shoe Diaries: Creative Applications of Small Flashes (Voices That Matter)

The one way to ge the creative juices flow is not to shoot anything.

Use the time to reflect and review what you have done. I have and the results are quite a shock but you can see a progression over the last three years since I started doing all this seriously.

The problem I find with press/editorial work is that it's very very easy to get stuck in a basic groove of flash on camera, get the shot, get the names and get out. Towards the end of my freelance time at the Constitution I would hang around a little longer to get something different.

Rosemary Wright was a good example of this. The job didn't take more than 10 minutes but I came out with two very different shots. There was the "play it safe for the paper" shot and then the more creative one. Which one did the editor pick.... yup the one that looked different.

So I haven't taken a picture in two weeks now and I'm starting to get very itchy fingers.

The January that never was.....

Too many things happened.... so no photography that month.

Back on track. The good news is that Maranna McCloskey's album is due out this month. Northern Ireland newspaper, "Local Women", ran a small bit on Maranna. The shots of her from October 2007 (it was a cold afternoon shoot) still run and still get comments.

Ah well, here's another one from the shoot.

Carrying the Lee Filter sample packs around.

The wonders of Strobist hail that the Roscoe Gel Packs and the Lee Filters Designer pack are oft required in the wonders of doing things with a flashgun.

The Lee Filter Designer pack comes a block of gels with a pin through them to keep them all together. Strobists have devised ways to keep them in some logical order. Last night, I figured out mine.

Enter stage left, the Asda business card holder. All £1.24 of it. There's 25 pages in them which hold four business cards per page. So you can hold three filters per business card pocket and fit the whole gel pack in.

Here's mine:

The onstage/offstage rule.

Following on from what I was talking about in my last post. The onstage/offstage rule is really deemed to anyone who operates on stage... so actors, musicians, poets, writers and all that lot.

When Rock The Valley were doing gigs in Limavady the Halloween Ball was always a good night for images. The Kiss tribute band, Hotter Than Hell, did the whole nine yards in terms of make up, platforms and the attitube, but remember it's an act. In fact they were nicest bunch of blokes you could ever meet.

I waited a long while for them to do the photo, and I wasn't leaving until I had it, their manager/press person came over to me and said, "they are ready for you now". When I walked in it was all nice accents, shakes of hands, how you doing, you're not from Limavady are you (I have an English accent in Northern Ireland, it's the first question I get). "Right lads, can you give me Kiss attitude?", no sooner I said it they were in character. Ten frames later and I had what I needed. The funny thing was that someones mobile went off and he answered it, "yes darling, I'm just in the middle of having my photo taken for the paper.... okay... yes.... love you, no you first... no...... okay....byeeeeee". As soon as he put his phone in his pocket he stuck his tongue out and gave me Gene Simmons.