On reccie with Charlie

Having been commissioned to shoot a series of pictures for a local florist who wanted images to enter in a national floristry competition, I decided it would be best to reconnoitre a couple of suitable locations.

Also, as one part of the series involved a model wearing a dress ‘built’ by the florist, I asked the model – Charlotte - to come along with me.

I’d already been through to one of my favourite locations - South Queensferry - that week; another reccie I’d arranged to do with members of a band who have asked me to shoot some promotional pictures with them – that project is still in the pipeline and loosely ear-marked for the beginning of August. So, with that visit still fresh, I decided to take Charlotte to my current ‘next most’ favourite location, Blackness. I say current ‘next most’ favourite, because I do tend to chop and change my favourites about as often as I change memory cards.

Blackness has a number of plus points which tick all my boxes for a good location: it’s gorgeous; it’s generally quiet; it offers lots of options. Blackness boasts an old castle which was used as a military base as recently as the 2nd World War. It sits on the Forth and offers a great point of foreground interest for excellent shops up and down the estuary. It has great beaches; woods, open grassed areas and a harbour where boats from the local yacht Club are moored.

I didn’t take either of my Canon camera’s as I didn’t expect to be shooting anything but, when we got there, Charlie couldn’t resist getting into character, and I couldn’t resist shooting her with my ever present compact. The little camera did really well, I thought and, well, Charlie always does a great job.

For the ladies x

Playtime again.

Not often my schedule allows me much time to play these days, but I came across these images while going through the (almost daily) ritual of trying to make space in my pictures folder.

"A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet" - Shakespeare

Rachael returns

I had the pleasure of welcoming young Rachael and her mum, Maggie back to the studio for another fashion shoot.

Rachael’s confidence in front of the camera continues to grow, as does her portfolio of poses and looks. She knows she still has loads to do, but she’s improving all the time and her appetite for the work remains keen.

Now that the weather is – at last – beginning to turn, I’m hoping to set up some outdoor shoots with her. If you happen to pass us while you’re out, I’m the big fellah with the heavy coat, gloves and hat with a camera stuck to my face. Rachael is the pretty girl with the sweet summer dress and goose-bumps ;-)

Rachael:

Quick as a flash, eh?

My last few days have seen me with the nose to the grindstone as I printed a series of 31 x A4 prints.

You have to kinda steel yourself for a task as repetitive as that; you have to make sure your mindset is right and you have to be prepared to stay at it.

It took me around five hours to complete the series and, although I wept silently as I replaced empty ink cartridges one – one after another after another, or so it seemed – I did enjoy seeing the images transposed from electronic imagery to hard-copy prints. It’s a cathartic process that reminds me of developing my prints back in the good old back ‘n white days of yore; the cyclopic blinking of my Dad’s ‘Gnome’ enlarger with its excellent ‘Star’ lens, the rattle of the negative tray, the smell of the chemicals and, of course, watching the images materialise from out of the white paper. It’s not so different now … well, OK, I guess it is.

Things are a lot quicker now though, are they not? Or are they? The fact is, those images I spent all of yesterday printing were first consigned to digital ones n’ zero’s in the camera’s CF card way back in October of last year; a wedding I had originally been commissioned to cover at around this time last year!

As well as being a lovely couple, the bride and groom are also a busy pair and they only finally produced their list of wants just last week. In fact, yesterday marked four months to the day since I did the shoot. I have also to say that the full sum of the invoice was paid just a few weeks after the shoot, and that I have had further orders for reprints.

Isn’t it ironic though, how for all the ease of workload and speed of turnover in the digital age, we humans can still draw things out :)

New Year ... a time for reflection

So I thought I’d take that simple ‘turn of year’ staple in the literal sense of the phrase and went to work on producing a few still life captures with the aid of a mirror.

Teddy is a much favoured – and much admired – model of mine; he’ll sit for hours without complaint while I run around him arranging lights and reflectors. But he knows it’s always appreciated :)

When the sun shows its face

It's not often we get to see much of the sun these days so, when it did decide to show its face yesterday, I got out there to sample it.

My car took me west to West calder and then off to a place called Wilsontown on the outskirts of lanarkshire. There, I found a place called 'The Glen'; one of those little nature-scapes which grow around the path of a river and offer up any number of potential pictures. The light was very flat when I got there, though, and the paths (thankfully not too well travelled) were pretty mushy. I had boots on, but my trouser legs got soaked to the knees.

On my return to Livingston, I had lunch then wandered up to my studio to play with my flashlights. I have a boom arm which holds a 5-in-1 reflector in place, and I used this to tie various bunches of silk flowers allowing them to dangle. Then I set up different scenario's to light them. I use two x Canon 430ex speedlights mounted on standard tripods with brackets that allow a shoot through brolly to be mounted.

Some of the effects are great, and I spent about four hours (how sad) moving lights and rehanging backdrops. Now, if I could just get a model who would stay perfectly still for me for around four hours and ... well, one day when I can afford it maybe :)