Somerset Archives - Page 10 of 14 - Simon Plant Photographer

Oct

Wicker Coffins & Wetlands Centre

Today was the end of a very full week of shooting in London, Devon & Somerset.
We also had to produce estimates for a couple of fantastic briefs that we hope we will be shooting next month which we are pretty excited about.
So all in all a very enjoyable week and to top it off today we spent a fantastic morning looking around yet another location we are planning to shoot for our personal project “Life In A Somerset Landscape”
The location was PH Coate & Son “Willow & Wetlands Centre” here in deepest Somerset.The Coate family have grown willow here since the 1800’s and today produce products from environmentally friendly Wicker Coffins to Christmas Hampers for the famous Fortnum & Mason in London.
So just like Cider making the Willow growing indusrty just had to be included in our project and we plan to return in November when the Willow Harvest is under way.

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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.

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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!

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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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