Some bespoke Kitchen Photography captured and retouched for my client Papilio.
Jul
05
There are certain days while out driving the car that I know I’m going to get sidetracked by a view or a subject I just simply can’t pass up.
I have fond memories of holidays as a child in Cornwall here in England.
As I grew those holidays continued with friends and I eventually found myself living in the area for a brief time.
It was around this time (the early 1990s) that I started a project to capture portraits and images of Cornish fishermen.
Jun
28
Kitesurfer’s #2
Flight-at-the-beach
Jun
28
Advertising Photography Shoot For Receipt Bank
Back at the end of November last year I was contacted by my client Receipt Bank and asked to look over a location-based advertising photography brief they needed shooting.
To give you a brief overview Receipt Bank produce an app that allows business owners to easily scan their receipts avoiding spending valuable time manually entering them into spreadsheets.
The brief was simply to capture three business owners at their places of work with the final images being printed on the walls in Receipt Bank’s London offices and potentially other media.
Having worked for many years with the Creative Director Stuart shooting Cars, Lifestyle and other Corporate work it’s fair to say we have a good understanding of one another.
This was one of the reasons the brief was pretty loose and we could adapt things slightly on the day as we felt fit.
This is not a bad thing when shooting on location which can often be a little unpredictable compared to the sanctuary of a studio but also because due to tight schedules we were unable to scout the locations personally beforehand.
1st Location Rowdens Chartered Accountants
All the locations were based around the Chichester area of Sussex which logistically made sense as we were looking to capture everything in one day.
The first stop was Rowdens Chartered Accountants where we were to Photograph Penny one of the directors of the company.
Lighting smallish areas with low ceilings like an office can be tricky especially if you’re a fussy bugger like myself!
Luckily Stuart knows this and allowed me time to adjust the lighting until I was happy.
My approach to lighting, especially in these situations, is to keep it simple and persevere.
The actual shoot was completed within around 10 minutes.
I don’t wish to keep people on set any longer than needed especially if capturing corporate work when people are sparing time in a busy schedule.
Another reason to work swiftly is sometimes I will get a person who is not fully comfortable in front of the camera which I add was not the case with Penny or anyone else we captured on the day.
2nd Location MJO Forestry Limited
The second location was at MJO Forestry Limited where we met proprietor Marc Odin and his wife.
MJO is a family run business who manage local West Sussex woodlands.
We decided to initially photograph Marc in the woods with one of his state of the art machines and this worked well.
However, upon returning to MJO’s yard we noticed an old rather dark wooden building which turned out to be the sawmill.
Both Stuart and I immediately decided this was too good a location not to shoot and this ultimately became out the second image.
This is another reason to remain flexible on Advertising / Commercial photoshoots as you never know when something better offers itself up.
3rd Location Whitby’s Photo-Video Limited
Our final shoot of the day was at Whitby’s who were another family-run business.
Whitby’s specialise in photographic printing and camera sales and we were going to have to shoot while their compact fully decked shop was open for business.
It was this point that I was glad that I had kept to my approach earlier of keeping the lighting simple as there so was no way I was going to be able to set up multiple lights here especially while the shop was open to customers.
We waited for a short time for a lull in footfall into the shop (they were pretty busy!) and we captured the images but not before Mark the owner closed a sale to Stuart for a camera for his kids!
Mark the proprietor was a real character and once again my job for the day was made very simple and fully enjoyable to complete.
Post-production was very straight forward although I did decide to very subtly re-colour some items in each image to match Receipt Banks brand colour of Orange.
I also decided to create a 2.5d Parallax video from one of the frames I captured of Marc in the Mill which can be found below.
Evening Stroll, St Pauls Bay And Chapel Rhodes
Jun
09
Surrounded By Blue, The Harsh Beauty Of Midday Light
I recently rediscovered this image in my archive and decided to give it some TLC and publish it here.
It was taken near Gaios, on the island of Paxos while on a boat tour in the summer of 2006
I would not state this image as a particularly amazing piece of creative travel photography in fact the image was simply a grab shot
to look back upon and enjoy as a memory of our trip.
Never Shoot In The Midday Sun.
If you critiqued this image you probably say the lighting here is a little bland (it’s overhead) and pretty harsh in contrast (it’s a fairly cloudless summer sky) and certainly not the time of day that most photographers including myself would choose to produce creative travel photography.
However, I’ve always said there is no such thing as bad light it just depends on your personal style or what you decide works for a particular image or a clients brief.
On the plus side, in this image, that same bland hard light gives some amazing punch to those blues which for me are a strong signature of Greece along with incredible mountains and historic sites of interest.
Once again we see that rules (or guidelines) are often there to be broken and even encouraged for creativity especially when it comes to photography.
If you want to see some wonderful images by a master photographer who is often known for their use of razor-sharp light and contrast I’d recommend checking out Albert Watson’s work especially the images in his wonderful book Cyclops.
