Trec A Lifestyle Portrait, Venice Beach 1992

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.

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Lifestyle Portrait Of Venice Beach Lifeguard California

Trec Vencie Beach Life Guard 1992

Centek Commission.

A few months back I was assigned by Advertising Agency Bray Leino to spend a couple of days shooting on location for their client Centek. Centek  manufacture equipment for the oil drilling industry and I was briefed to capture their state of the art manufacturing process and people who help run it.The job was pretty full on as deadlines where fast approaching for a launch of a new factory and the images or at least some where needed for this. Myself one assistant and Art Director sucessfully finished the shoot with time to spare and I then spent the following day shooting samples of the products in the studio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northern Soul, Capturing The Passion To Dance

Northern Soul is making another resurgence at the moment and it’s been some 29 years since my days of attending all-nighters at various venues and Scooter rallies across the country. One of my friends Terry however is still hitting the talcum powder dusted dance floor from dusk to dawn (I’m not exaggerating!) across the UK. He still is a remarkable dancer and considering he’s older than me (sorry mate had to get that in) that is even more credit to him. With this in mind, I just had to create an image that captured his passion to dance and my vision/memories of those ballrooms across the UK.

We shot the images in our studio which is an old stone barn with ideal solid wood floors for Terry to strut his stuff upon.

The shoot was incredibly fun and we ended up with so many great images that the selection process took me forever to finally decide on my final image as did cleaning up all the baby talc from the studio floor!

The post-production consisted of compositing an appropriate background and creating just the right ambiance.

Below is a short video of the shoot, completed images, and a few that got shortlisted but not used.

 

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September Sunshine In Devon

A couple of weeks ago I found myself showing my work at Bray Leino (see post Beautiful Bray Leino ) down in deepest Devon.

This week I was lucky enough to be shooting for them in a couple of locations over two days in Devon and making most of the glorious September sun for a few frames.

Filleigh,Devon

 

God..The Best Lighting Cameraman ?

Back in my early years of photography I remember reading a magazine interview with Advertising Photographer Duncan Sim.

When quizzed about how he created one of his images of an American Diner shot against an incredible sunset he simply said “I think God is the best lighting cameraman”

Now I’m sure this was a tongue in cheek answer and no doubt the post production company helped both God & Sim somewhat along the way also but that statement has stuck in my mind ever since and more importantly I have found it to be very true.

Whether subconsciously  that statement moulded my way of approaching lighting or it was the lack of lighting available to me in my early years I’m unsure but these days (depending on the job and effect required) I always look to use natural light whenever possible then supplement this with flash or other light sources as required.

He may have been toying with the magazine a little but I think Sim was spot on especially when I see lighting like that in the image of my daughter below. This was shot in Cornwall while camping a few days ago with no reflector,no flash just my experience / knowledge and God given great light.

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Raging Beauty

I’m mildly obsessed with shooting skies as I believe they can often make or break many of the images I create.

So when thunderstorms are forecast you can be sure my camera is not too far from my side much to the despair of my family who get pretty fed up with me constantly pulling over in the car to shoot them !

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Knorr Garde d’Or

Towards the end of last year we where commissioned to shoot a job in Rotterdam for Bristol Agency Flourish

The brief was to photograph a chef at a hotel on the outskits of Rotterdam for a campaign for Unilever’s Knorr’s Garde d’Or range of products for adverts around Europe.

Time on set was rather tight but I’m pleased to say everything went very smoothly and hats off to Flourish for a very well organised production allowing us to simply concentrate on capturing the best image possible.

 

 

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