Month: February 2020

The Phantom Celebrates another 100

The Phantom Celebrates another 100

This post is steeped in history.

It starts 100 years ago and comes together in 1943. My connection started unbeknown to me in 2010 and it all joins up in 2020.

Let me explain a little. I am talking about a WWII veteran born in 1920. He was part of a rookie crew that took delivery of a Lancaster Bomber, a quite famous ‘ton-up’ Lancaster. It flew 121 sorties. It was assigned to 100 Squadron.

Now in 2010 I took photo of the Lancaster with its Phantom nose art, and in 2013 I wrote a post about the Phantom of the Ruhr talking about that aircraft with an extract from BBMF’s website on it’s operational history and crew.

I’d taken many photos of the Lancaster, but loved this artwork and the processing of the photo. I thought the black and white really brought out its detail.

So, whizz on now to 2020 and I receive an email out the blue from a Flight Lieutenant Aicheler at RAF 100 Squadron enquiring about the photo.

It turns out that the daughter of the Rear Gunner, later Squadron Leader, Geoff Green, contacted RAF 100 Sqn, asking if they could request the use of the photo as a birthday card for her father’s 100th birthday.

I have to admit, it was a total surprise to get this email and after talking to Flt Lt Aicheler I was happy to help with the request.

The card was made with my image and the 100 Sqn badge and was given to him on his birthday by people from 100 Sqn

I received a letter from the Squadron with a copy of the card and squadron badges.

It’s nice when you can be involved in something like this, even in such a small way and the fact it involves one of my photos adding to a little bit is history is quite memorable.

You can read a little more here on the RAF website – Veteran Celebrates his own Century

Valentines Maternity Review

Valentines Maternity Review

It’s Valentines Day, Happy Valentines! and what better day to review a few past Maternity Photoshoots.

I’ve been doing these types of shoots now for many years and they are one of my favourite types of shoots to do. Partially because I have 3 kids, and enjoyed shooting our own maternity shoot and partially because I get to combine my 2 main styles and create lovely shots with floating materials.

My maternity shoots are a combination of black and white images and colourful materials.

As it’s Valentines Day, let’s start with a classic black and white image. This one shows both Mum and Dad to be with a classic hand Heart pose.

or another classic low key colour side lit image.

I like black and white photos, I think they create some lovely images with great lighting and I love my material wraps. So here an image combining both.

Saying that, you just can’t beat colour and my wrap really adds colour! Here is one, a lovely golden orange wrap, taken on a dark background.

Just a simple draping of the wrap creates a love image.

I have lots of wraps, so you can choose your favourite colour and have a lovely floating wrap photo, or go for a classic blue or pink.

Or some with a bit of punch!

It doesn’t have to be on black either to have an impact. If you prefer something slightly soft but still impressive, it can be shot on white with a slight colour added to the background but still in a classic pink…

…or again something a little brighter!

I have so many variations on these styles to choose from to put in this post. If this is something that interests you, please visit my Maternity pages to have a browse, oh and Happy Valentines!

Lee Orchard
North Devon Maternity Photographer

Cosplay – Clown to Harley Quinn pt.1

Cosplay – Clown to Harley Quinn pt.1

Recently I got to shoot something quite topical. With the release of the new Harley Quinn film, I had the chance to do a shoot along that sort of style.

However, that is not how the hoot started out. We began with some cat eyes, stripes and a lovely colourful corset

Then with some clown styled clothes we created some poses that we thought would make some clown styled images!

Clowns like to play with balloons, however, as anyone who’s tried to photograph some balloons can tell you, it’s not that easy! Especially when they are old and pop when you touch them!

However, with some perseverance we got another shots to create this photo.

I created an interesting background and produced a circus feel photo.

I noticed that the styling of the clothes looked very ‘Betelgeuse like’ so I processed an image to give that effect.

She also had a very scary looking bunny!

With a slight addition of another striped piece of clothing and a hat I created a very eye bending image with a checkered background. I really like the effect of this photo.

Now came the idea to make this into a Harley Quinn shoot, which I will write about in part 2 of this post.