The word on the street.

So I went out on a street shoot in and around Bristol on Saturday this week. 

It was a nice haul and there seemed to be a good vibe out and about the place as most people did not mind having a photo taken. The images can be seen on my flickr profile but I have added a couple of nice ones here. It was a nice respite from sport again and I do enjoy taking photographs of people in certain situations. I have moved away from shooting the homeless however as everyone is at it and as discussed with a friend yesterday it has now become like shooting fish in a barrel.

Back in the summer of 2006...

A retrospective blog. I went out on some flash training today with my good friend and colleague Gary Bray. 

We were sat mulling over some stock and discussing reinventing the wheel when it comes to shooting when I spotted these images, taken by Gary at Silverstone in August 2006. Seems like a life time ago. I had not long returned from Australia where I had some success as a photographer and picked up where I left off. 

This was a great weekend shoot where the 24 hour race tested my skill in all kinds of light. I have since moved the Canon kit on and now shoot Nikon exclusively, but one has to say that the 24-70 L was one sharp lens though the Nikon nano equivalent is as sharp but sooo much lighter. 

Much like my hair I suppose as the mullet here is coooooollll and may have to come back!

Looking ahead......

This years summer recruitment campaign proved to be very successful for both the Bristol Aztec's Youth Team and Titan Images. Perhaps for the first time, the young men at the Aztec's had some decent stock photography that they could work with. Needless to say, some of the more flamboyant characters on the team loved working the camera and on occasion I had to chase them off with a mono-pod so I could focus on the shoot. It was nice wandering around Bristol seeing my work on lamp post's, billboards and shop fronts, though I hope Bill Posters is not to unhappy. Come to think of it, who on earth would call their child Bill Poster's...  :-)

The question is this - what can we do for next year? Answers on a post card, but plans are already going down after meeting with the Aztecs Youth coaching dept to discuss next seasons campaign.

Bianchi man.....

So, Bristol rider Adnan scores me a picture on local site -

http://www.bristolsport.net

After all that, it is the NX2 processed shot that see's the light of day !

Better than Avalon and mate's rate's....

Well, despite being a sport photographer by accident, I can turn my hand to most types of photography and I do love a low key gig where you really have to manage your camera when it comes to capturing the right light and look. Back in June 2008 I did a recent promo shoot for local upcoming band 'Better than Avalon' when they were in the Bon Jovi support act contention spot (coming 3rd overall) and thankfully the guys loved the work so they have booked me for several shows and some promo work away from the studio and the live environ. 

My brain has already started working on locations and lighting as I want to help these guys as much as I can as they are starting to be featured in the local music press. More to follow as and when. 

As ever, it is a small world and what is interesting is that I spent about three years in a band with the father of Better than Avalon's bass player. Needless to say, I will be offering the band 'mate's rate's' when it comes to the shoot !

The ongoing debate.....

So, as I had a few minutes to spare, I decided to reprocess a couple of shots in lightroom again and I have to say that this program is amazing at extracting colour, tone and detail from RAW images, as well as managing exposure. 

The only downside is that it is too easy to process every image in a Dave Hill style. Whilst the images are amazing to look at, sometimes that can look over done and with the recent upsurge in strobing and this style of processing, it can hardly be called original. However, one has to say that the images look fantastic on canvas and my recent client Larry Godfrey of Team GB had a large print which looked stunning. In the meantime, I have enclosed an example of what LR can do. The second shot is LR, the first being capture NX2 from Nikon.

One suspects that LR has a time and a place in the work flow. Images like the one pictured above may well be the ideal candidate for this process whilst some other work may well benefit from vanilla processing in NX2 or CS3. 

In conclusion, there can be no doubt that Lightroom does indeed make images 'POP'...!

The best laid plans....

Well, not long back from todays shoot and it went ok, not great. There are a few reasons. First of all, I did not really think about the shoot enough. The theme was road bikes and I had arranged to meet the subject locally where we drove to some quiet country roads so we could get some token stock shots of him in action. However, finding the right location was hard and along with rubbish light, the first part of the shoot did not go to plan. The second part did however and we got some excellent 'sportrait' work.

Shooting manually as ever, I simply measured the light and then as per usual, under exposed to get some 'moody' images. After going off road, we found some nice light and used that to rim light the head and shoulders. I also shot through an umbrella to the cameras left and side on to the subject to diffuse and spread the light as I am starting to go off 'hard light'. Being honest, I left the second flash in ittl mode and let it do the work. The 800 was simply used as a trigger and has no real effect on the light. 

Overall, as a shoot it went ok though I have already begun to think about alternative locations where we can risk our necks on fast moving roads as this will help with the context of the road bike, though road bikes do often head into country lanes, I think that a more industrial theme will be the next objective.

On yer bike.....

Over the last summer, I have really started enjoying covering bikes. I think it has something to do with the fact that the bike offers the chance to try some very creative shooting with all kinds of light as well as differnt shutter speed for effects and of course first and second curtain flash. I am shooting some road bikes this weekend. This will be a fully lit shoot with three flash guns being lit from various angles and shot through translucent umbrellas to get some decent light going. The above shot is something like what I am hoping to get, but with much better light.

Is the world slipping away...?

So, August is closing out, September is coming around which means that the Rugby season is getting ever closer and that means covering games in seriously cold weather and usually in the rain. 

Whenever I cover Rugby it rains. I cant remember the last time it did not rain. Bristol Rugby have had a reasonable pre-season but are now hampered by the mid to long term injury of scrum half Shaun Perry (pictured) who is out for at least three months. This image is a token stock shot that is usually called 'Getting the world away'. 

On the playing front, Perry is a big influence on the way Bristol play as his rugby brain is quicker on the field and he makes things happen, which in turn lead to great photos. My heart sank when I heard about the injury. That said, teams have squads for this reason but the canvassed opinion of Bristol Rugby fans that I have spoken to all think it could be one long, hard season with relegation a distinct possibility. Time will of course tell. 

For more on Bristol Rugby go to www.bristolrugby.co.uk

Processing.

I seem to be caught between two processing methods at the moment. I am using NXs and Lightroom, which are both great, but I cant seem to settle on one. I think that using one would help my work flow but cant nail one down. Lightroom is superb and handles NEF/RAW very well, but it is too easy so over cook the photos. On the other hand, NX2 is a very down and dirty quick editing suite that suits my vanilla style, though I wish there were more to it. The two images shown in the post are NX2 and LR processed. 

Can you tell which is which ?

The Olympic dream...

It has been a funny few weeks watching the Olympics on the BBC. Whilst I have enjoyed it, most of the time I am watching things from a photography point of view, thinking about where I would have liked to have shot and what kind of shots I may have got.

Overall, after viewing lots of Olympic images online I remain convinced that I could get the job done, especially after reviewing some of my stock work which could be Olympic in style. It seems a lot of pool, wire and agency stringers are shooting the less is more style here, where the image does the talking. Something that I think Eammon McCabe started back in the day.

Still, one has to commend the work coming out of Beijing and I feel that like the Olympians who compete you have to have a dream and whilst I am getting older, maybe London 2012 could be my Olympics?

It's a funny old game.....

Photography is a funny game. I am currently working on stock and archiving images as well as readying some stuff for print.

It's funny that whilst I deliver consistent sport images, occasionally, something will be superb and goes straight into my portfolio. The above shot is an example. It is Bristol City forward Lee Trundle holding off the defender with the ball at his feet in god awful rain. The framing is out of the camera but processed slightly to enhance the rain.

And it's hello from me....

So, here we are day one on my blog. 

I am currently preparing for a road bike shoot this weekend. 

As usual it will be with multiple flash units so I am currently charging batteries. I have been looking at alternative ways of triggering my slave flashguns which are Nikon SB600's as the red eye is, in my opinion, to small and seems to miss the beat a lot of the time. I suspect I will have to invest in either pocket wizards, alien bee's or sky-ports though the Nikon SU-800 is an option.

I am hoping to achieve this effect though out on the road with some decent blue skies though I am yet to check the weather forecast for the weekend ! A sky like the above would be something else...

Anyway, welcome along. Pleased to meet you.