A Passion For Somerset

I know I have mentioned this before both here and probably many times on my photography training site but I love the Somerset Levels.
Somerset has been my home since the age of seven and the Wetlands are where I spent many many hours shooting and mastering my photography.
These days most of (but not all) of my photography tends to be planned in detail rather than simply exploring and capturing what I find although this often more fun!
Following some extreme flooding in late November here in the U.K I decided to take a trip to some of my favorite areas of the levels with just a single camera and a single 70-200mm lens. I occasionally reduce myself to a limited amount of equipment to kind of stretch/exercise /challenge my creativity.On the day in question the winter light was beautiful combined with a striking cold frost that barely shifted all day.It’s days like these that there seems to be an image waiting to be captured around every bend.It’s also days like these that reminds me of all the years of learning and why I’d do it all again in a flash..pun intended 🙂

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Kayaking In Kynance

August is notorious for being quiet for business due to the summer holidays and the photography industry is not an exception.
With this in mind I decided to catch up on some new personal work that I had been planning and to also produce a short video for some promotions that we have planned.
This image is of a good friend of mine Dean who is also the manager at The Monks Yard where our studio is based.
Dean is a keen Sea Kayaker and when not working hard at Monks Yard (gotta say that!) he is often found off the Dorset coast fishing in his Kayak.
I had several images in my archives that I thought would make great environments to use in this portrait and eventually I decided upon one of Kynance Cove in Cornwall, I know not quite Dorset but hey it’s my image so I get creative license 🙂

The image took approx 5-6 hours to retouch and ended up being quite a monster PSD file.
The promotional video below shows a brief overview of the shoot and the post production.

 

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XXL Books “The Monster Photo Directory”

I suppose it does not matter what you do if you are self employed for a living we all get approached to advertise in something or other.
If you are a commercial Photographer it seems to be calls or emails about placing adverts on photographic web portals or in some promotional book that is being distributed to every creative and his dog.
Don’t get me wrong I’ve done my fair share of promoting in a few of these publications over the years and some are well respected and are actually used by the Designers and Ad Agency creatives who receive them.
I’m pretty picky about where I spend my advertising budget and generally stick to direct marketing these days and give little time to looking at paid space in books. However a few weeks ago I received a call from a very nice Dutch fellow called Eric Kievit who chatted to me about a monster sized 50x70cm photography book his company XXL Books produced.
I have several Dutch friends whom I have met while visiting Turkey where we have a holiday home and so  had an enjoyable chat about many things Dutch including Football and how some of my favorite photographers all seem to be either Dutch or German.
Despite my doubts over advertising in this impressive sounding publication this year Eric kindly said he’d send me a copy (all 10kg of it !) in the post of their Dutch Photography edition so that I could experience & enjoy the stunning photography.
True to his word the book turned up a few days ago and it really is an impressive publication not only in size and weight but also in the quality of the reproductions.
I look forward to seeing the U.K version and maybe submitting my own work at some point in the future.

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Banking Above The Crops, P51D Mustang

Hot off the screen today is this image that I started and competed retouching this afternoon (gotta be a record ! )
The plane was captured a couple of years ago during a shoot at the Airbus family air day display and is an historic WW2 P51D Mustang called Ferocious Frankie.
I had two ideas for the final image the first was to have the plane flying above the ocean and cliffs or the English countryside.After seeing several fields in my village bearing some rather lovely golden coloured crops I decided to go with the countryside idea.
From here my idea grew another step further and I decided to have someone in the image working the land and my son was suitably bribed for the job ! The shot was completed very quickly as it started to spit with rain and was very simply lit with just a little fill in flash to aid the slightly flat ambient lighting.

Bums Or Ballet ! . . Waiting To Dance

Like most parents having young children means a fair amount of time is spent transporting them to various places for one event or another.For my son it’s Football training or matches and for my two girls it’s currently Ballet.
Also like most parents I take a lot of photographs & video of them BUT rarely nevermore than quick snaps and mostly with my iPhone.
It’s not that I don’t want to take images that are more than quick snaps but more the fact that they usually kill any moment I’m not quick enough to capture by doing something like the image posted below !

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No Respect !

However I’m a very determined chap (you need to be to pursue a career in photography !) especially when the scene/moment is looking too promising to give up on like the one below.
The image is of my two daughters at Ballet waiting patiently (that’s a new one!) in line for their turn to dance.
The image is probably not an award winner but that is not an issue, for me as a parent it captures a beautiful quiet moment (as is my photographic style ) in my daughters lives where they are not aware of me or the camera.
At the end of the day when we are old and grey (don’t say it !) what will be of more worth a personal image like the one below or all the wonderful commercial images we shoot to earn our living ?

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New Cgi Automotive Images For Honda Accord

Just added two new Automotive CGI images to my book & website.
The background and HDR images where shot a few years ago in Hamburg while at a Cgi conference and used here by Honda to promote their V6 Accord.

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Location Photography & HDR Imaging Simon Plant

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Location Photography & HDR Imaging Simon Plant

Behind The Scenes..Shooting U.S Army Despatch Rider With ” 1943 ” Harley

I consider myself a people person, I like meeting and talking to people and I especially love photographing them in their environment (as you can see by my recent posts here).Probably one of the most enjoyable things about my 20+ years in photography is the many people and places I have been fortunate to experience.
I have enjoyed photographing many gorgeous models people in the public eye and heads of industry but what I really love is shooting characters from everyday life doing what they love in work or play.

Twelve months ago I shot the image and video “Praha 44”  for my Digital Photography training site . The image below features a German Officer at night against the backdrop of Prague.

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The gentleman who I hired the costume from also had a huge collection of other  items from WW2 including a U.S Army 1943 WLA Harley Davidson.After seeing the bike the ideas and story started to grow in my head and knew I had to shoot it.After a few discussions with Manny (the owner and model in the images here) I decided the scene would be set in Northern France and the rider would be dressed as a US Army Infantryman Despatch Rider from Headquarters Company delivering messages to and from various units after the D Day invasion.
In my mind the scene I wanted to portray him in was one of him resting after a hard ride (a quiet moment) against a Forest backdrop and I knew the perfect place.

A day was set and myself and my assistant met Manny with a van full of props including a genuine M1, semi-automatic, Garand rifle (deactivated of course !) and set up the scene.
Like many of my images I look for simple compositions and uncluttered lighting.For example in this image the soft light was quite important as I felt harsh light coming though the trees would simply cause too many distraction in the scene and I definitely did not want that.The shoot took about 90 minutes to complete partly due to the fact we where all having a blast and did not want to stop creating images.

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1940’s Pocket Guide To France !

Manny eats breathes and lives his love for things from WW2 but in a very positive way and it was a pleasure to work with someone as passionate as I am about getting the fine details just right.

Manny has an incredible collection of other WW2 memorabilia including a WW2 Sailers Uniform which struck a chord with me as my father served on HMS Indomitable in the Pacific during the war.
Watch this space for that one !

View some brief video footage from the shoot below.