Fantasy Police.

Hi All,


As like most photographers i have had lots of ideas floating about in my note books and so it is time to start creating these images.


The following idea kinda grew out of something else.
The girl friend has got a new car, a lovely little Mazda MX5, which is great fun in the summer with the roof down by the way.
Being mega happy like a big kid i thought that it would be nice to take some pictures for her with her new toy.


I had the idea of long boots and jacket with the car right from the kick off, but was looking for the right location to set it. A fellow photographer friend suggested this place as it has all the items that i was looking for,
Cobbled streets, iron fire escape - it was perfect.


Using  a public street like this certainly comes with its own troubles.
We have to be polite and considerate, if other vehicles come by we have to move, plus all the local nutters come out and talk to you as they must not see things like this very often.


Back to the shot- 
as i was looking for quite a dark styled shot, sin city came to mind, and so this character was born. A sort of dark comic book styled female police officer.


The props - the guns and police badge come off Amazon for a couple of quid. The pistols are bright blue plastic toy guns, as you can not have replica weapons in the street and i did not fancy getting swarmed by REAL armed police.


I will be doing a series with this character and have others up my sleeve.
A male office and some bad guys and will be trying to tell a narrative as time goes by with the images.


I hope you enjoy.

Strobist info :- This image was lit with 2 SB900's, one bare on the left picking up the car and creating the pool of light on the ground where as the second was in a softbox on the right of the image picking up the female.

Few behind the scenes images.

I am currently trying more and more to improve and learn flash photography. I love natural lighting work, and would never try and annoy my clients with flashes going off at a wedding or event

 In my opinion the way I work an event is I love to blend into  the back ground and get natural shots.

An amazing compliment was when a bride and groom recently asked me on their big day, “how are the pictures going?”  “are you getting good shots?”

They are busy with their day which most photographers seem to forget… THEIR day.

But when you produce an album and the couple are amazed at how you got that shot..

“ wow we didn’t see you there? How did you catch that moment?” then I know something is going right.

With portraiture work and bridal shots I find flash lighting  can certainly aid in creating great images.

Here is a quick image showing with and without additional lighting.

As you can see the model certainly stands out and the image looks much better with additional lighting. It is as you can imagine not just a simple task of  turn on your flash and away you go. Some thought and testing has to be done.

From the images you can see in both that the background is how I wanted it.

Using a speed light in these images I didn’t use a light meter. I took an image without the light to get the back ground exposure correct and then I add the light.

Starting with the speed light on around half power and then I can turn the power up or down according to the exposure, or move the light source towards or further away from the model.

As always im learning while I do this, one thing I learnt from this shoot while lighting was to try and not to light the back ground so much. As you can see in the image above with the lighting, I love how the model stands out, but I would like her to stand out from the background more. From analyzing the images back at home on a large screen I think next time I will try and get the light too fall off the model better and not illuminate the background so much.

 Here are a few images of behind the gear, and from the serious shots before you can see how we have fun and laugh taking pictures.

All the images were lit with a single Nikon sb900 speed light in a ezylight soft box by lastolite.

Adding Colour to your images with Photoshop.

Hello Guys and Girls, 

Here are a couple of images taken of Kelly 2 weeks ago. 

Its been awhile since i last worked with beauty editing, and so fancied having a play. 

I've missed sitting for hours on images like these, smoothing skin, enhancing colours, changing background lighting effects etc etc. 

But in todays post i wanted to show you how to add some colour to YOUR images, 

in a simple couple of clicks in Photoshop. 

Im using Photoshop CS5, but this technique certainly works in older versions and Pshop elements. 

Open your image that you are wanting to colour into Photoshop. 

Next add an adjustment layer of Hue/Saturation, as you can see in the following image. 

In the Hue/Saturation adjustment dialogue box there is a tick box called colorize, 

Tick this box and move the Hue slider from left to right and see the colour change. 

You can play with the saturation and light/darkness sliders to adjust to the desired effect. 

Don't forget by doing this adjustment on a separate layer, you can also adjust the opacity if you feel it is too strong for what you are wanting rather then directly to the image. 

In the coloured image of Kelly above, i used this technique with a mask on the colorized layer to "paint in" more colour onto the lips, and another layer to change and enhance the colour of the eyes, to really make them pop. 

There are many ways of doing this technique but i find this way certainly the quickest and most straight forward.

Also by trying the "Blend Modes" on the coloured layer you will see lots of cool effects and different looks to play with.

I hope you enjoyed this post and i look forward to produce other Photoshop technique posts.

If you have any questions on this post, or other techniques that you would like to see,
Please feel free to comment,


Thanks

Lee

1st Photography course.. outdoor flash lighting.

I have recently been hooking up with Phil over at Melen Studios,
i heard about a course that he was running, an outdoor flash lighting course and i jumped at the chance to attend.
I have been a fan of flash photography, and have slightly had a play, and so a course was right up my street to push and progress my photography.

I would strongly recommend courses ran by these guys-
a day outside with a load of cool down to earth people being creative sounds more like fun to me rather then a course.

Here are a few images from the day..

A play with a fashion stylieee shot.

With being on Flickr and facebook, i view lots of different images.
And a trend at the moment seems to be a certain style of, id say a fashion shoot.
Its something that has intrigued me on how it was done for sometime and so I thought id get out and give it ago.
I knew the majority of the look was due to the right sun lighting. I was sat in one evening and the sun just looked perfect for what I wanted. Like I have mentioned in previous posts, you need to have recced locations before, so at the drop of a hat you know where to be to catch the weather.

With living in the country side there are numerous rapeseed fields around, and I love the colour and texture these produce.

But a word of warning, before you wade in, like i did,
wear some old trainers and pants — otherwise they get covered in the bright yellow pollen.

Here is the final image. I hope you like.

Light Hearted fun.. :0)

Those of you who personally know me,
know that my day job takes me up into the depth of Scotland to work.

Working with the Scottish people i have learnt their passion for football... well England losing..
and so i wanted to do a picture for a bit a fun.


For the photographers out there,
i was lit with 2 SB900s,
one to camera left and the other to the right both with home made cardboard snoots.
The back ground and world cup were added through photoshop.

Lee

WHAT IS SCOTLAND 

UPTO

THIS SUMMER???

Home Made Studio.

With a recent purchase of some Pocket Wizard flash syncs, i was excited to try them out.
This is the first time ive tried to recreate studio looked images.
Im fairly happy with the results, the one of the male on his own is too flat and im not keen on the shadows against the wall, but its all a learning curve :0)

for you strobists out there,
the images were lit with 2 Nikon SB900's, one to the left with an umbrella,
And one to the right with a home made cardboard snoot.
varied power from image to image. 1/32 -  1.4 etc...

Xav and Corrinne Shoot.

Good friends of mine Xav and Corinne wanted some pictures taking of themselves. 
Corinne is a singer in a band "Tora" and so want a promo pic, where as Xav loves his bike and so wanted one with his beloved...and his bike...


The Bike picture, i was trying again with the flash at sunset theme i like. This has worked better then the car one i have previously done. 
Once again the TTL mode is letting me down. It has made me bite the bullet and im saving for some pocket wizard flash syncs. With syncs you can be so much more creative too, rather then just placing the flashes where they can see one another.


Here are my 2 favourite images from the day.

Assisting on a Spinx Photography shoot.

Last week i was kindly asked by Aimee Spinx, to help out and assist on a shoot she had to do for her uni work. 

Dominic another photographer, ive worked with before was also present, working with these guys is fantastic, they are very hard working and creative people.

A big key for me is there are no egos present, idea’s get thrown about and the work site is a fun and buzzing experience, which puts the models at ease and it shows through in their work.

Be sure to check out the finished pieces on Aimee’s website or facebook page.

Here are a few of my visions of the day…

50's Style shoot.

There are many shoots out there of pin up girls, from different eras. 
I really fancied giving it ago.

Kelly has got the largest wardrobe of clothes known to man. So had a rummage around to see what she could find.

She found the out fit in the shoot, which we thought was a 50's style. We looked online for hair styles from that period.  
With Kelly being a hair and beauty expert she did all her own makeup and hair for this shoot.

I have just bought a second, off camera flash. This was the first shoot where I had used another light source. 
It was mainly a flash on a tripod, through an umbrella to soften the light.

I thought the light brought a cool and new edge to my work and am really interested into pushing this idea further.

First Model Shoot.

This is my First time at going out and doing some posed model shots,


The weather was great, dry and sunny.
I learnt a lot.
If too sunny you will find your model squinting, then if turn round they will be in a huge shadow and so takes abit of playing.
I wasn't very good at making the model pose a certain way, and so I let her do her thing. Move around and ill take pictures, with the brilliance of digital you can view your images instantly, and see what poses work and which dont. So then you can see your favourites and push that look further.


Here are a couple of the day, the rest are here or via a slide show