Feb

“Whoever You Want To Be” Stonar School

A lovely campaign called “Whoever You Want To Be” for private school Stonar that I photographed and composited together a while ago.

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Commercial Photography Shoot, Seeing Double For Stonar

A few weeks ago I received a call from Ice House Design In Bath which is always exciting as I’ve had some lovely briefs from them in the past.
It turned out this call was to chat about another interesting brief titled ” Whoever You Want To Be” for a private school in Bath called Stonar.

The concept was to show the wide variety of activities and opportunities the school offed by showing the same students repeated in the image but in other outfits.
After a brief chat about what I thought might be the best solution to getting the job shot and retouched Jack from Ice House explained about the rather tight deadlines that needed to be met.
The completion dates required happened to be bang in the middle of one of the busiest periods I’ve known as well a family holiday but a doable schedule was drawn up and the job was booked in.

The shoot itself was shot on location at a beautiful 18th-century Georgian mansion called Hartham Park close to Bath.
Upon arrival on the shoot day, It seemed every corner of Haytham’s interior offered me another photographic opportunity and the phrase “Kid Candy Shop” comes to mind.

Finally though myself and Les, the creative director narrowed it down two rooms that fitted the brief perfectly and the job was completed within our allotted time.

A few days (and early hours) in the post was needed to meet a couple of the deadlines but the whole job went together without any drama and more importantly, the client & agency were very pleased with the results.

Design Agency Ice House Design

Photography Simon Plant

Feb

Location Lifestyle Portrait, Asur At Dawn

I’ve mentioned before that for 10 years I was fortunate enough to have a holiday home in Turkey.
On one trip while out shooting at dawn, I captured a location lifestyle portrait of this chap Asur Teber who was a security guard at one of the beachfront hotels in Gumbet.
He spoke no English but was more than willing for me to capture his picture, in fact, I eventually had to make my excuses to get back for my breakfast as he didn’t want me to stop !.
I arranged to send him a print as I always believe if people have given me their time and ask for a copy of the image it’s the very least I can do and always deliver on that.
Unfortunately, I mislaid his details so I decided to deliver the print the following year to the hotel he worked at.
I was told by the hotel that he no longer worked there, and he apparently lived in northern Turkey and they had no contact details.
I left the prints anyway in the hope they might one day find there a way to him.

Jan

Unveiling Of Alp Yanki

Today sees the sale of our home in Turkey finalised which to be honest leaves me slightly sad.We bought the property close to Bodrum around 8 years ago as an investment and, as a result, made many friends in the area and my many trips created many happy memories (and images) but it’s simply run its course and it’s time to move on.

Oct

Bluegrass Inspired Banjo Shoot

Inspiration to create images comes in many forms at least for me. While retouching some work the other week I decided to randomly listen to something completely different from my normal playlists on Spotify and put on some Bluegrass music. One track, in particular, hit a chord (pardon the pun) which as you may expect from the Bluegrass genre contained the Banjo.

Oct

Corporate Portraits At Dillington House

It was only in September that I found myself on location shooting at the beautiful Hartham Park house near Bath.
This week I was at another beautiful historic house called Dillington which happens to be only a few minutes from the studio.

Dillington House

I had received a call from an online events company called Choose Your Event who needed some corporate Portraits for a magazine feature they where appearing in.
As CYE are based on the grounds of Dillington House (and a client of the company) it was arranged for us to use the house for both interior and exterior images we had planned.

Behind The Scenes

For the interior we chose one of the many rooms and it’s impressive fireplace to position the directors Ben & Simon Gray and to reflect some of the room back into frame and help set the scene.

When it came to the exterior we where once again spoilt for choice but I decided on a couple of simple set up’s one of which was to show the famous golden local Hamstone and windows of the property.
As with all photography the best images are often those that are kept clean & simple even if sometimes they are far from simple to produce.

Behind The Scenes

You can view the CYE Group website and their services Here

May

A Lifestyle Portrait, Keeping The Ambience The Dark Art Of Weaving The Withy

While on a shoot capturing some images for my personal project Life In A Somerset Landscape at Withy growers P.H Coates I came across this very dark but atmospheric room.
In it three guys where busy working in the dim light and plenty of banter was being exchanged in their strong Somerset accents especially when I was introduced to them followed by the words photographing you where mentioned!

It wasn’t a Landscape… but the room had a rustic historic charm and bags of atmosphere and I could visualize the final lifestyle portrait image complete with Matthew Godfrey one of the guys who skillfully weaved wicker fences in the room.
The image was going to be a tricky one to attempt to capture in one frame due to the dim light and the fact there were elements I wanted to be visible to help tell the story without over lighting and killing the whole ambience of the place.
It’s one of those moments when seeing the final image and having extensive knowledge of photo retouching techniques allowed me to harvest all the images I would need then combine them in post-production without a huge amount of system time.

Apr

Wooden Horse & Treacherous Tides

The Bristol Channel can be a treacherous place.
For starters it has the second-highest tidal range in the world, the first is the Bay of Fundy in Canada.
So if that does not catch you out then there is the mud to contend with which claims many a tourist’s cars during the summer months.

I’ve lived along this coast for a large part of my life so I know to give it a lot of respect.
So it was partly this that intrigued me about the Mud Horse Fishermen who go onto the dangerous mudflats to retrieve fish from their nets.

They can only do this as they know the area and tides very well and also have their sledges known as Wooden Horses that keep them from sinking waist deep or more into the concrete like mud.
I had 20 years previous captured an environmental portrait of another of the fishermen but now only 2 survive and I decided to call Adrian Sellick to see if I might be able to capture him for my project Life In A Somerset Landscape
A time was arranged and I met up with Adrian a week later and also his father Brendan who was busy mending nets just a stone’s throw from the beach.

To my amazement, Adrian said he would drive us part of the mile or so out to where his Horse was anchored in his small 4×4 and I have to say I was pretty nervous about that after seeing so many vehicles devoured!
Thankfully I had nothing to worry about and with Adrian’s advise I managed to avoid stepping on the wrong type of mud and being swallowed up and got the shots I wanted before the tide turned.
The final image shows Adrian with his Wooden Horse with Hinkley Point Power Station in the background.

Apr

The 1943 Harley & D-Day Despatch Rider

Inspired by some very old musty prints and tales from my Mum and Dad about living and working through WW2 I set out to shoot some images that represented that era.
Through some research I managed to find a guy called Manny who had collection of WW2 memorbillia (and that’s a huge understatement !) who was also located not far from me.
I also thought Manny would be a great addition to my Life In A Somerset Landscape Project so I gave him a call.

As expected Manny was very passionate about the era and travelled to many of the re-enactments both here and abroad during the summer months.
During our telephone chat he mentioned the authentic 750cc 1943 Harley Davidson he had and a U.S infantryman’s uniform as worn in the D-Day invasion.

At that point the image came together at least in my head
We decided that we create a story where a U.S Army Despatch Rider from headquarters company is delivering messages to and from various units.
The setting would be a forest in northern France and so my next job was to find the location and arrange the logistics of getting Manny and his bike there.

A week later the pre production was finalised and the shoot day arranged.
Manny was a dream to work with bringing authentic maps,rifles,etc giving us plenty of options for many variations I may want to try.

As my work is about quiet moments I worked around the narrative of the rider taking a rest from riding on his dangerous assignment.

USA Army Dispatch Rider With 1943 Harley Davidson Taking A Break.

USA Army 1943 Harley Davidson Leather Pannier

USA Army Dispatch Rider With 1943 Harley Davidson.

Feb

Blind Woman & Goats Stefanos Volcano Nisyros Greece

An image captured on film circa 2004.
The image was taken at the edge of the Stefanos Volcano on the island of Nisyros Greece.
One of the few inhabitants of a deserted village is an elderly blind woman who sits in the late afternoon sun on the doorstep of her home with goats running wild.

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Jan

Trec A Lifestyle Portrait, Venice Beach 1992

While touring America as a younger man! my last stop was Venice Beach in L.A.

I found Venice beach to be everything I had anticipated it to be including some very interesting people for capturing lifestyle portraits.

It was while enjoying the beach that I saw this guy working Brooks Tower (lifeguard station) and I knew I couldn’t depart California without capturing an iconic lifeguard made famous by Baywatch!

After chatting for a short while I discovered that the gentlemen’s name was Trec and he informed me he was approaching 40 years old and had been a lifeguard for many years in Venice Beach.

Not wanting to distract him long for obvious reasons I quickly captured several frames of film of him with thanks and left him to keep everyone safe around Brooks Tower.

Lifestyle Portrait Of Venice Beach Lifeguard California

Trec Vencie Beach Life Guard 1992

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