Tag: studio

Victorian

Victorian

Towards the end of last year, I did a lot of Re-enacting Portraits from time periods around the 1400-1500s but not nothing from late 1800s. That all changed in October with the arrival of a lady who loved Gothic Victorian dress-wear.

When shooting these period costumes I try and shoot them in a style that is in keeping with the look.

In this case I created a panelled look room backdrop to give the images a more interesting feel,…

…as well as creating a wallpaper that matched the theme.

My studio is also full of many props. This includes a huge trunk that dates back to the golden age of train travel. I thought it would also look great in these photos.

We went on shooting more a few more poses, creating many that the lady loved.

If you re-enactor or like period style clothes that you would like photo in, then please visit my portraits pages for more examples and prices for one my creative portrait shoots.

LOP CV Photo Challenge – Week 3

LOP CV Photo Challenge – Week 3

Now, I been so excited about my week 3 subject, that’s its only Monday and I’ve done it.

Week 3 is Water

With the help of my 8yr old Son, his first time behind the camera, we created this image from a few shots.

I then took these photos with my Son dropping the tomato. We made quite a mess, but it was great fun and we plan to do some more.



Again, You can find peoples entries on social media using the hashtag #lopcvphotochallenge

You can also view all my images from my challenge here, with link to the social media feeds too.

LOP CV Photo Challenge – Week 2

LOP CV Photo Challenge – Week 2

I posted about Week 2 on Social Media, but forgot a blog post, I just added it to the main post..

Week 2 was Old Things Thank you again to everyone who took part. Here were my photos.




You can find peoples entries on social media using the hashtag #lopcvphotochallenge

LOP CV Photo Challenge Week 1

LOP CV Photo Challenge Week 1

So, last week I set a challenge to try and keep the boredom away while everyone is in lockdown. They challenge was to take a photo (or 2) on the topic of Games. Thank you to everyone who took part. You can find peoples entries on social media using the hashtag #lopcvphotochallenge

These were my photos




I will be setting a new challenge every Sunday, so keep you eyes peeled.

Colourful Bottle Photos

Colourful Bottle Photos

I shot some product photos last year for Torview Wines of their wine bottles. These were standard product images on a white background. I wanted to reshoot them and try something a bit more interesting.

I planned to shoot them on a great background this time, but a wanted to add some colour to them.

I didn’t have time to shoot all 3 bottles, so just did 2 along with the colour processing.

First up, the Dornfelder.

Second, the Rondo

If I get a chance, I’ll shot the last one.

Old Cameras

Old Cameras

So, following on from my bottles I decided to photograph some old cameras.

I love old cameras and have a couple myself, but I wanted to created some product style photos but, just straight forward shots on a white back. So nothing fancy to make the photo look old, just clean cut.

I started with an oldie.

and worked my way through the years, this one from the 50s

60s or 70s I believe

then, my first ever camera

right up to a modern day DSLR (albeit a few years old now)

I wanted a low angle on the cameras to make them stand out a bit. I did change the angle a bit on the SLR, but prefer the others.

This is a very simple setup and one I can teach anyone who wanted to take a product style shot. Very quick to do and requires virtually no post editing either.

Photographing Bottles

Photographing Bottles

Sometimes when tutoring you get asked about a specific thing a bit more unusual than normal. This happened today.

Whilst doing a Lightroom session we were discussing past studio work that I had helped out with and the current products that were being photographed were bottles. To be precise, bottles of wine for a large supermarket chain!

I had photographed bottle products before but couldn’t quite remember my setup, so a quick bit of research and also adjusting for the fact that we weren’t in a studio, we set up the light and made some minor adjustments to how it could work and took some shots. They came out well and we wound up the session and I headed home.

I wanted to give it ago in my studio when I got home, so I setup 3 lights. 1 large octagon light as the back light and 2 rectangular soft boxes, one on each side.

I took 6 photos and selected the last couple to show. From starting to set up the lights to final photo was no longer than 20mins and this photos are straight out the camera with just a crop and minor highlight tweak in Lightroom. They are not cutout so the small block at the bottom is a toy brick and is what the bottle was perched on! If this was a ‘proper’ shoot, I would have edited out the wooden block!

The first photo is with both sidelight vertically positioned, creating 2 lines down the bottle.

The next image is with the right light rotated through 90 degrees, this makes a light instead of a strip.

My soft boxes also have a grid in them and this is shown in the highlight on the bottle.

I am not a great wine drinker, so the first bottle I found, was in fact one I had kept for photographing at some point. I was then going to find a wine bottle and try that and remove the grids, but my studio got taken over by Nat, photographing other bits so the other bottle shots will have to follow later.

I think there is some improvement to be made on this so will have another go and show the results too.

Upcoming Photo Shoots

Upcoming Photo Shoots

Well things are getting busier as January is progressing. I think people are now getting back into the old work routine and the Christmas break is slipping into memory.

So, what have we got coming up. Well, Mother Day is on its way, so we are taking bookings for sessions for Mothers & Kids, or Dads bringing Kids for Mothers Day photos. Ask us about our Mother Day shoots.

We also have some Maternity shoots coming up in the next few weeks as well as some family portraits. We have revised our Portraits Packages for 2015 and you now get even more from your session.

Business portraits are also still being booked, so why not book yours and get a nice new Social Media or Business Portrait done.

After the refurbishment of the studio last year, it is ready for stage 2, which will involve creating a relaxing waiting area for parents to sit while Kids are having their photos taken.

New Studio Setup

New Studio Setup

We have spent the last week clearing out the studio and refitting it with different background and lighting systems.

The changes should now make it easier for us to change backgrounds, adjust lights and move lights around. But probably most importantly, it has given us more room and enabled us to use a wider backdrop. This should give us more flexibility and great options for changing setups. We are now going to try and make some more creative backgrounds and setups for more vintage style photos!

What a busy month!

What a busy month!

Wow, what a busy month. Its been so busy, that I havent had time to write a single blog post this month. Not good!

The month started with my whole website being moved to a new hostng company, as my existing hosting people were moving were they bought their hosting from. To cut a long story short, the new hosting couldnt cope with my site, so I had to move it all again. Thats 2 blogs, 5 websites moved twice in 2 weeks! Not ideal.

Anyway, that is now all behind me and we are with a different company that hosts our other sites too!

Other things, well I’ve been coding another website for Natart Photography. (natartphotography.com) This has been built from the ground up to work on PC and tablet platforms aswell as mobile devices. It was nice not to retro fit like I keep doing with this site.

I’ve also tweaked this blog again, and added more links done the side.

We have also done 2 photo shoots, hmm, 3 photo shoots in the last month. One for McCarthysCountryStore.co.uk and one for the BRiSC2012 conference in Reading. We also did a photo shoot of our kids to get more photos for are websites.

I thought aswell I’d add a couple of new photo to my website, so here they are, and thanks for reading!


Amur Tiger

Snowy Owl

Hoverfly