There are a few questions we get asked about regularly and colour management is one of those topics.
We had great fun in the studio making this video, we knew we wanted an awesome model to showcase some colours and killer moves, Beth Smith always delivers! Teamed with the fabulous make up and hair skills of Sophie Daly and some 60’s inspired bits of clobber it’s colourful and fun (and hopefully educational too).
Here’s a teaser to whet your appetite! The full video is due out on the 22nd of November.
People often ask Gavin where he gets inspiration or how he stays motivated, a really good question. For my part, I try and come up with ideas and suggestions and this one was something that Gavin really liked the idea of.
I suggested that I could arrange a shoot that he knows nothing about, he will just turn up to shoot. No planning, no research, a real challenge as he is someone who is organised and likes to plan as much as possible beforehand.
I have wanted to arrange a shoot at the beautiful Forest Garden at Shovelstrode. Beautiful woodland, a large pond, amazing yurts and cabins, there’s a lot to love here. Lisa and Charles, the owners, were so accommodating and helpful. We were very fortunate to have amazing weather on the day of the shoot, even though it was October!
Here’s a few behind the scenes photo’s and one of my favourite images from the shoot.
Jade ‘rocking the boat’!
Always over pack props!
Amazing place!
Here’s a teaser, the full video will be out on AdoramaTV Thursday the 8th of November.
Hopefully this will be the first of a series of Secret Portrait Shoots.
Creativity is an essential part of Gavin’s photography. From deciding on the best angles and make up styling to venues and props we take a pride in creating and sourcing things to individualise our shoots and workshops.
I am always thrilled when someone takes the time to email or tell us how they appreciated the preparation and styling from a workshop, as this is something that happens way before the day and can make the difference between a good shoot and an amazing one.
Here’s just a few items we made our own for the ever popular Aviation Apocalypse workshop!
An old protective mask, before and after. Then in use attached to Kerry’s handmade post apocalypse costume.
Gavin printed this grenade on a 3D printer, it was a rather bright lime green so I gave it a paint treatment. It was added to Roger’s post apocalypse costume that we handmade.
On a recent commissioned rerun of this workshop by Olympus, we made 2 new outfits on a quick turn around. Here’s the clothes for Brian the ‘Feral Hunter’ before and then a test shoot giving them a trial run before the big day after an apocalyptic treatment.
Here’s a new look for Kerry, hoping to make it warmer as we were shooting outdoors in October, but it was actually really hot weather that day. This was made from our old sofa!!
It’s not just the models that get to try the outfits on for size!
I often get asked how I come up with my ideas or what my creative process is. With that in mind the next video for Adorama TV will be a different format to usual. Encompassing the creative process behind one of my photo shoots.
There’s a lot of planning and organising behind the scenes, all the stuff I don’t show usually. In the next 3 videos you will be part of the journey from initial concept through organising and shooting right to the end processing results and final conclusions.
You’ll see how we work as a team, that things don’t always go as planned. The importance of a plan B (and C) and much more. I hope you’ll join me, warts and all, to get a glimpse from the other side of the camera.
It’s not often you get the chance to photograph an Olympic athlete, but recently I was very fortunate to be asked to take some PR shot of the brilliant freestyle skier James ‘Woodsy’ Woods for Olympus UK.
There was a small window of opportunity, between winter Olympic competing in the slopestyle skiing and world cup practice, when he was in the UK.
It’s not often the weather plays in to your hands but I can honestly say we couldn’t have planned it any better. We were shooting on the amazing rooftop at the ME London Hotel. There had been snow elsewhere in the UK but London was boringly snow free, just cold. But then a few flakes started.
The most intense of weather phenomenon’s hit and suddenly we couldn’t see the London skyline at all for snow. We sheltered ourselves and the gear in the very cool cable car the hotel has and when the worst of the storm passed we continued shooting with the fresh covering of snow adding the perfect level of authenticity to the photo’s of a winter Olympian!
There’s just one week to go until The Photography Show2018 opens its doors at the N.E.C. in Birmingham, UK. Running from the 17th – 20th March, it’s the UK’s biggest and busiest photography show around 30,000 amateur and professional photographers attending and I’ll be there for all four days.
It’s a great mix of booths from photographic businesses big and small but this isn’t just another trade show, there’s also loads of things to see and do. There’s a constant stream of free demos and talks on various live stages and that’s on top of all the smaller demos on many of the booths dotted around the show.
I’ll be there giving various talks and demos on portrait lighting and photography, so if you’re coming along it would be great to meet you.
Saturday
10.30 am
PiXAPRO E91
Out of sight light (Demo)
1:00 pm
TPS Live Stage
Beyond beauty lighting (Demo)
2.30 pm
PiXAPRO E91
One light or two (Demo)
Sunday
10.30 am
PiXAPRO E91
Out of sight light (Demo)
12.15 pm
Olympus D91
Creative portraits from simple lighting (Talk)
1.30 pm
PiXAPRO E91
One light or two (Demo)
3.30 pm
PiXAPRO E91
Out of sight light (Demo)
Monday
11.30 am
PiXAPRO E91
Out of sight light (Demo)
2.00 pm
TPS Live Stage
Creative portraits in tight spaces (Demo)
3.30 pm
PiXAPRO E91
One light or two (Demo)
Tuesday
10.30 am
PiXAPRO E91
Out of sight light (Demo)
3.30 pm
PiXAPRO E91
One light or two (Demo)
All my demos are free and available on a first come first served basis.
Show tickets are free for professional photographers and the trade (if booked in advance) and £13.95 for enthusiasts (£18.00 on the door)
Our big summer workshop is becoming something of an annual event. This years theme was “The Faded Circus” which we held at Square One Studio in Surrey on two dates in July and August. Steve, the studio owner, allowed us to take over both his studio areas and even gave us rare access to his barn for that authentic circus feel.
We were joined by 12 photographers for each date and two amazing models, Beth Smith and Brian Mansi. In order to keep the groups small and the shooting time high, I once again roped in the help of Tommy Reynolds as a group leader who did a brilliant job passing on his ideas and passion.
We’ll be running this workshop again in April 2018 (exact date TBA). Register your interest here
For the morning sessions Beth took on the roll of a show girl. We had the whole of the main studio to play with and set up various areas for Beth to sell popcorn, brave the knife throwing board and even had a little back stage area.
Brian became the circus ring master and carnival carnie. Being outside in the barn meant we could put straw on the floor and had room behind for some creative back lighting and LOTS of smoke.
After lunch it was all change. Beth was in the second studio which we’d set up as a fortune-teller’s tent. Ouija boards, crystal ball and even a little bit of fire added to the shoot. For the second shoot, we made time at the end to bring Beth and Brian together. It was a bit of a bun fight for the photographers but brilliant fun.
Who doesn’t love a clown? Well lots of us don’t and Brian played that hand to perfection. Miserable, angry and at times a little bit scary, it’s exactly what the faded circus theme was all about.
There’s nothing more frustrating to me than seeing a workshop organiser shooting photos for themselves at the expense of the attendees. As a result I only took a few shots. Fortunately, the photographers who joined us took thousands of photos and below are a few that I’ve been sent so far.
So you only have two bare speedlights and you want to shoot some creative portraits. That’s the challenge I faced recently after discussing how a fellow photographer could get started in portrait photography without spending too much on new equipment.
Don’t get me wrong, bare speedlights will obviously limit how you can light your subject and won’t beat better strobes and a choice of light modifiers but I figured that if I can generate the initial excitement for shooting portraits with basic kit, the rest will grow in time.
So with a bit of help from model Fern we dusted down the Red Riding Hood cape and set to work.
I started by putting the two lights either side of Fern, at 90 degrees to the camera and in line with her shoulders. I carefully made sure they were evenly spaced and that Fern was evenly lit. The end result was a bit too much contrast but very dramatic.
Next I spun the lights around and pointed them at the white walls of my studio. The light was bouncing off the walls which simulated the look of light coming from a source much bigger then a small speedlight. Bigger means softer when it comes to light but it also means more spread and sure enough the photo looked much flatter.
I turned the light back around. If you want a sinister look, put the lights low. It’s not a lighting position I regularly use but in this case it felt right. However the direct light from the bare flashes still looked a bit too harsh for my taste.
To soften the light a little on Ferns face I kept the lights low but angled them up to the ceiling. The result was a mixture of hard light and soft light that worked perfectly for the look we were going for.
For more information on the shoot and the post processing, check out the video below
[youtube]www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKNSqE8sdrc[/youtube]
Music and magic may not sound like two photo subjects which fit seamlessly together but a few weeks back they joined harmoniously on my Music and Magic workshop.
Based at the excellent Square 1 Studios, our subjects for the day were magician Anton Binder and grime artist IF-E, both of whom I’ve worked with before, so was sure the 10 photographers on the workshop were in for a great day.
Photo by David Keep
Photo by Vanessa Parker
Photo by Jane Barrett
Photo by Vanessa Parker
Photo by Vanessa Parker
Split into two groups of five, the day started with Anton in the studio shooting theatrical style images and IF-E outside shooting lifestyle images for a fictional album cover.
The afternoon was a little different. Anton got to magic up some fire and sparks thanks to something called Flash Paper, he did some close-up magic in the studio’s home set. IF-E on the other hand was laying down some lyrics in our fantasy recording studio and he finished the session posing for silhouette shots with smoke and lasers as the background and lights.
Photo by Daan Olivier
Photo by Jane Barrett
Photo by David Keep
Photo by Jane Barrett
We had a great day and I’d like to thank the models, my assistants and the photographers who made the whole thing possible.
The Photography Show (TPS) is the UK’s biggest and busiest photo event and last week I was lucky enough to be there for all four days. But I wasn’t there to shop, network and learn. I was there to teach.
In all I did 17 talks, demos and live streams in four days, so TPS 2017 was a super busy event for me. Along the way I met with some wonderful photographers, so if you stopped and said hello then thank you.
Most of my demos were with PiXAPRO lighting and below are some of the photos from my “Beyond Beauty Lighting” demo. The photos below are straight out of camera and give you a fair idea of what I was showing.
My idea was to set up the “classic” clamshell or beauty lighting with a softbox above and a white reflector below. Once done I then added a background light to take the mid grey background up to a light grey and then pure white. Once there I added a prop or two to style it out.
Next I added various coloured gels to the background, added two speedlights behind to “thin the face” finally broke the golden rule of photography by asking the model to hold the speedlights and point them at the camera. The result was unpredictable, random and fantastic fun! OK here’s a few more of both models with just a light touch of editing.
I worked with two models supplied by PiXAPRO over the four days. Ayla and Rosa both worked incredibly hard to make not only demos work but also the other PiXAPRO photographers who also worked the stand.
If you were one of the lucky few photographers who saw my demo AND got a chance to test out the lights with Ayla or Rosa I’d love to see what you shot… leave a link in the comments below.
