Photography Archives - Page 10 of 12 - Simon Plant Photographer

Oct

Capturing The Cider Orchard

This week the weather finally looked perfect and we got to shoot the old Cider Orchard I mentioned in a previous post.
I arrived on my own at the orchard just after sunrise and spent nearly two hours in the beautiful autumn light capturing all the images I would need ready for the composite.
I should explain again that the plan was to capture the orchard now while full of Apples and then photograph the guys from Richies Cider when things quieten down for them after the harvest.
The shoot was pretty simple and most the time was spent trying to create nice clean compositions as there was just so many trees full of fruit close to each other that it was a little too much !
We now have to create our backdrop from the images captured and arrange to return to Richies Cider Farm in a few weeks to capture the images of the guys to complete our vision for the final image.

Sep

Proper Somerset Photography, Remembering Gordon

It’s been a busy week here at Monks Yard researching locations and contacting people for several shoots we have ideas for.
For the last 18 months or more we have been working on a project titled “Life in A Somerset Landscape”

The title pretty much speaks for itself but the concept is basically to photograph well known or iconic Somerset landscapes with either people or animals in them.

Withy-weaver-portrait-somerset-ph-coates

Withy weaver PH Coates Withy growers Somerst

Of course in line with my style of imagery these images are often composited scenes made up from sometimes many elements to create the idyllic and quiet moments that make up my vision.
When I first started on my career some 25 or so years ago I would often shoot for the Somerset Tourism Departments and met some wonderful & colourful characters including a guy called Gordon Rich.
Gordon was a Somerset Cider Maker and owner of Richies Cider Farm and was Somerset as they come!

Maybe it was because I was young and just starting out with my somerset photography business but he was always very accommodating whenever I turned up to photograph him and always had some fantastic stories to tell.
Unfortunately, he’s no longer with us but the Cider Farm still continues to thrive under the families management.
The project just had to feature Cidermaking at some point as it’s what Somerset is best known for. After a quick chat with Gordon’s family and showing the images captured in the project so far they were happy for me to go ahead with my idea.

Today we did a recce of one of their oldest Cider Orchards which is currently brimming with apples ready to be harvested for cider making.
This time of year is perfect timing for the trees being full of apples but bad timings for the guys as they are very very busy harvesting and pressing the apples. Due to this, we plan to return at dawn when the weather is favourable to capture the orchards and return when this year’s busy harvest period is over to photograph some of the guys and composite the two images in post-production …how things have moved on since my days shooting Gordon on my old 6×6 film camera!

Aug

A Tranquil Mooring, A Moving Visit To Cadgwith

Who does not love Cornwall? I even love the picturesque A30 despite the fact it can be a bastard if you get caught in a jam.
I’ve lost count how many times I have visited since a kid and I even did what most have thought of doing and lived there for a short period…great in the summer not so easy in the winter!
Needless to say, I have photographed most of the more familiar spots over the last 18 years and many charismatic fishermen most of which are no longer with us.
So it’s sometimes either not really appealing to revisit places already well photographed in favour of somewhere new or a challenge to look at places with fresh eyes and creativity.
Having said that as photographers as with most things in life we grow and our vision grows and changes so the images I shoot today will not be completely the same as those captured previously.

I captured this image “A Tranquil Mooring” at dawn at Cadgwith on the Lizard a few weeks ago, it’s a place I’m very familiar with and happy to revisit with or without my camera.
On this visit, I noticed a new bench near the spot I was photographing dedicated to a young lad called Toby who had very sadly died aged just 16 and had no doubt loved Cornwall as much as me.
Reading that inscription on the bench certainly left an impression on me and I’ll be sure to return next time and leave a few flowers.

A Tranquil Mooring.. Dedicated To Toby

Jul

Time Lapse Photography, Dancing Shadows Over The Crops

I’ve been shooting and editing video for a good few years now for the purpose of presenting and illustrating Photography & Retouching training.
This year however I find myself shooting more and more creative video type work which blends stills & video.
Some of this work is nearing the end of production for a client so I’m unable to publish just yet but here is something similar we shot for our Studio based Cafe

Something else we have started to play with is Time Lapse photography which once again blends still photography with video.
Below is a short video titled “Dancing Shadows Over The Crops” we shot last week on a glorious summer afternoon in a beautiful field of crops and Butterflies.
This was our first attempt at Time Lapse and it requires a lot of images,batteries and most of all patience !..more to follow.

[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/69765604″ width=”1600″ height=”720″]

Jun

Boy In The Bay

I captured this image while out for a stroll one evening during my recent trip to Turkey.
It’s not often these days that I go out and just follow my nose with my camera and rarer still that I don’t use a tripod.
Most of my work these days is fairly planned out at least to some point or other so to go out and simply walk & explore is bliss. This takes me back to a time when I was learning my trade and the camera was welded to my eyelid wherever I went!
It was a beautiful evening and I came across 3 young lads jumping off a small wooden pier into the bay at Gumbet.
It wasn’t long before they spotted my camera and started to play to the camera which would normally be my cue to pack away. I decided however the light was just too good to walk away and besides I was simply enjoying the fun too much and getting too many great captures to end it.
Despite being grab shots the images still got a good dose of post production to help portray the mood of this beautiful sunset over the Aegean.

Apr

Shooting On Location With “Good King Hal”

Following on from my previous post I have now completed the post production work on “Good King Hal”
The shoot took place with Mike Farley aka Good King Hal leading professional Henry VIII lookalike here in the U.K.
I had an idea of what I wanted the final image to look like and this was helped along further by doing a recce of Barrington Court a few days earlier.
The planning also helped move the shoot along nice and quickly to save keeping former comedian Mike waiting around too long, in fact we where all done and dusted in about 40 minutes.
A big thanks to Mike and to the National Trust’s Barrington Court for allowing us use of the property.
Below is the final image together with a short location video.

Henry-viii-lifestyle-photo-retouching-composite-somerset

Henry VIII Shoot At Barrington Court, Mike Farley 07709 216281 http://goodkinghal.co.uk/

[su_vimeo url=”http://vimeo.com/64554800″ width=”1280″]

Apr

Good King Hal Photo Shoot Teaser

Today we finally managed to complete a shoot of Mike Farley a leading professional Henry VIII lookalike.
The shoot was captured at The National Trusts Barrington Court property in South Somerset has been planned for a while but delayed due to the late spring we have experienced here in the U.K

Here is a teaser video with more to come once all the post production has been completed.

[su_vimeo url=”http://vimeo.com/64378490″ width=”1280″]

Apr

Stop Motion..Blending Photography & Video

Photography is still a relatively new media (100 or so years old) so we are told and now we all are shooting digitally it seems to be evolving quicker than ever.
For me every day is a school day and just like school of days gone bye some days the learning is necessary but a little dull and others extremely exciting that open new creative possibilities for creating imagery.
One such technique that has got me excited and one I have been experimenting with recently is Stop Motion Photography which blends still photography with video to produce some very contemporary looking movies.
This week I have been fortunate to be able to confirm working with a great new client whom I have wanted to work with for a while. My first commission is a fairly large project shooting with this very technique starting this week.
In the meantime here is a short sample shot at our Monks Yard studios onsite cafe to showcase their gorgeous specials menu.

[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/63266636″ width=”1280″]

Feb

Swans Splashes & A Somerset School

A couple of weeks before Christmas I had a call from an agency called Ice House Design based in Bath.
They had a job for a client that was a private school called Kings Bruton School here in Somerset.
They needed a very particular image creating of a Swan taking off over water to fulfil use in several publications they where planning.
I was especially excited about this brief as I have been working on a personal project titled “Life In A Somerset Landscape” for nearly a year. The project involves photographing (and compositing) well known Somerset Landscapes with both people and animals within them so this job was a good fit for me on the back of this.

Some of the best creatives I have worked with are the ones that give you a brief but allow enough room for me to interpret it and go that little bit further with it.
Jack Owen the Creative Director at Ice House was one such creative, he provided a fairly tight brief but one that we both collaborated on and pushed further.
After several discussions and a few ideas thrown around we set off to start work on the project.
The first job was to find some suitable water to capture.I had several location in mind and most where on the Somerset Levels but my first location which was a local reservoir turned out to be perfect so much so in fact that the background was also used from the same images and not stripped in as I expected it would be.

My only problem at the location was the wildlife which insisted hanging around the camera despite me attempting to scare them off (the wildlife are pretty hard down ere in Zummerset ! ). I also had a Robin who kept pestering me wherever I walked or turned and by the end of the shoot I felt a little like Evan Almighty !

Back at the studio I decided to strip two images together to create the slightly wide background required from two frames I shot using a longish lens which had helped to create a nice soft perspective.

Next I found a lovely sky in my archives that lent itself to the mood we wanted and promptly added this into the scene.

Bruton where the school is based has a lovely old Dovecote on a hill that we agreed would be a nice subtle addition to add to the scene.The plan was to go and shoot this in suitable weather but unfortunately the weather was not on our side so a stock image was sourced and then retouched for our needs.
Another element that I reluctantly had to source from a stock library was the Swan.This was partly down to the tight deadline and also the fact the image needed was quite particular.
It was extremely important that we sourced the correct image of a Swan taking off and that the lighting was a good match for our background.
The main problem I had after scouring through tons of images was that those that where a good match where often of poor technical quality but eventually we found a near perfect image.
The balance of the post production was to add the swan and most important of all perfecting the splashes in the water which where a vital element in the brief.

After a couple of minor adjustments the agency delivered the proof to the client whom I’m told where overjoyed by the finished image.My hat goes off to Ice House for a great brief and some beautiful design work and also to Kings Bruton the client for doing something quite brave and removed from their normal photography requirements.

Graphic Design. Ice House Design, Bath – Graphic Design + Branding

Photography & Post Production Simon Plant

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Jan

Wandering Paris By Starlight

Sounds kinda exotic doesn’t it..”Wandering Paris By Strarlight” well actually the fact I found myself wandering Paris in the early hours was a slight cock up.
It was 2007 and I had been shortlisted for a very large car shoot for an agency in Paris and my agent called to say I needed to fly over to meet the creatives at the agency.I decided that after my meeting I would stay on an extra day to shoot some personal work to make the most of trip.
I’ve visited Paris before so had images of the city but this was many years previous when I was still very green behind the gills and as I mentioned in an earlier post your vision and tastes change with time.
So I planned my itinerary together with sunrise & sunset times so that I could maximize my precious short time and the best light.The problem arouse when I planned to shoot the Eiffel Tower (which was only a 10 min walk from the hotel) at pre dawn.Somehow my phone alarm got confused (or was it me!) and I ended getting up 3 hrs before sunrise and found myself walking the damp cold streets before I had noticed the error.
As it happens Paris and especially the Eiffel Tower look rather stunning under starlight and of course it has the added bonus that at this time of morning/night it also lacks the crowds of Grockels (Tourists) as we call them down ere in Zummerzet !.

Images Available As Prints In Our Gallery

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