Mar
20

Rich Tea Deer !

A few years ago I was commissioned to create a campaign image for a private school by Ice House Design in Bath.
The brief required that I did some animal photography and a Photo Composite a stag onto the sports field of the school.

Published-stag

I have to admit I often love the challenge of sourcing the elements needed for composite work but have to admit I thought finding a stag would be a tall order.
In fact, after a short time searching I found South West Deer Rescue Centre located within 20 minutes of the studio.

The centre was a charity run by a lovely chap called Mike and after a brief chat on the phone and a visit for a recee he introduced me to Rubus who was to be my model.
The shoot day went like clockwork and week later I had completed the retouching and delivered the job.

A week or so later I returned to the sanctuary as I wanted to photograph Mike feeding the deer their favourite snack Rich Tea biscuits!

Deer-sanctuary-somerset-composite-photo-retouching

Mar
19

Moving Mountains, Travel Photography Portfolio The Gumbet Windmills

Moving Mountains, Travel Photography Portfolio The Gumbet Windmills

I’d been told about this spot and the windmills many times while visiting my holiday home in Turkey.
Eventually, during one trip, I decided it was time that I grabbed my gear and checked this local landmark out and combine a little travel and landscape photography

It was a beautiful hot evening and the light was just starting to dip behind the mountains and I was keen to add the image to my travel photography portfolio.
I have to be honest after all the hype I was a little disappointed with the location when I arrived.

There were several windmills on the edge of the hillside and due to the shape of the hill I had to be closer to the windmills than I would have preferred.
This meant that the beautiful mountains and bay below were extremely obstructed by some of the windmills and the contour of the hillside.
At around this time, I was producing lots of video tutorials for a training site I owned. 

I decided I would take the opportunity to use some clever photographic and post-production techniques to create a more pleasing view and also create a video of how I achieved this for the sites members.
After some careful thought, I decided that if I moved the sea and mountains up higher into the scene and did some clean up ( remove a ropy looking windmill )this would produce a panoramic scene I knew would look stunning in the evening light.
So not an image that the purists would enjoy but one that satisfied my experience of the place even if I had to move mountains to achieve it!

Travel-and-photography-gumbet-windmllls-turkey

Mar
11

An Awesome A380 Airbus

I captured this A380 Airbus while on assignment for a client at an air show.
I have to say I stood in awe as I’d never witnessed something so big moving so slowly and gracefully in the air.
It looked as though it was a Hollywood special effect as it did not seem possible that something so big could move so slowly and quietly.
An amazing moment I just wished I could have captured some video footage as well as the still and attempt to do the moment justice.

A380-airbus-plane

Mar
07

The Last Harvest

I created this image many years ago but it’s still one of my favourites.
This was partly because It pushed my post production skills at the time to their absolute limit and so it was very satisfying when I finally completed it.

Photography-and-retouching-before-the-harvest

Mar
06

Blind woman on the edge of the Volcano

I captured this image in the near deserted village of Stefanos Greece.
The village is located on the edge of the Stefanos volcano on the island of Nisyros in the South Aegean Greece.
Over the years the village had almost been vacated entirely due to the volcano but a few people still remain.
One such brave resident was this lady whom I unfortunately did not get the chance to speak too.
She was blind and lived alone in her home above the crater with her herd of Goats.
As we approached the location and the scene in front of us unfolded someone described it as being biblical which I think was a perfect description.

Travel-and-landscape-photography-blind-woman-goats-nisyros

Feb
25

Stills Based Motion. Parallax Videos

With technology in constant movement it’s sometimes hard to know when something new appears if it’s just a temporary gimmick or if it’s actually something useful that will stay around.
3d motion or 2.5d to be more precise has been around a while and caught my eye.
It grabbed my interest as I could see how it could add value to clients by using the same still images shot for a campaign and repurposing them for motion based ads.
Like most things the images work best when pre planned to be used in this way but you can still create some subtle eye catching Parralax images from the simplest image like this portrait of a Belly Dancer.

[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/258647113″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]

The following samples are a little more complicated to produce requiring elements on several layers (spot the subtle seagull movement).

[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/257257982″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]

[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/256236312″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]

More stills based motion work can be found Here

Feb
20

Lifestyle In Loret De Mar

Back in October I made a trip to the Catalonian resort of Loret De Mar.
Unfortunately the weather was the worst seen along the Spanish coast for decades which of course hindered things slightly !
Fortunately the weather did break albeit just for two brief periods and I managed to capture several locations I had scouted.
Several months on with my models Susie Coats and Andy Elvin arranged (see blog post Pre Production For Post Production) I then photographed the models images and went into post production to composite the images together into the final shots shown here.

Mature-couple-lloret-de-mar-lifestyle-photographer
Mature-couple-lloret-del-mar-lifestyle-photographer-london
Feb
15

Path To The Cove

One of the first times I visited Kynance cove was is the early 90’s while shooting a lifestyle campaign for Clarks Shoes active sandals.
This shot was captured a decade later but not from the popular viewpoint that is most often used for postcard and book sales.
It’s sometimes hard to find a good vantage to call your own at well known locations but I see little point in replicating what’s been done countless times before.
I loved this vantage point I think it was the winding path and the stream leading down to the cove and beach cafe that made me stop and shoot from this spot.

On-location-photographer-cornwall-kynance-cove

Path and Stream Kynance Cove Cornwall

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