Rebecca's Birthday Shoot... preview

Firstly, a big Happy Birthday to Rebecca. She turned 12 this weekend and part of her birthday present was a studio photo shoot. Once again I used the fabulous Gareth Davies Studio in Wokingham.

Rebecca and four of her best friends had a blast as we shot different poses and outfits. I am just doing the post processing and will post a selection of the finished shots soon.

Truprint Guest Blogger

Those wonderful people over at Truprint, you know the ones; they have been printing our photographs, both digital and film for the past I don't know how long! A short while ago asked me to write a guest blog for them. So I did.

The post was on how to take a studio level low key portrait with a digital compact camera...

Here is the shot I took...





To check out how I took it you'll have to visit... here

And be sure to tell them Noel sent you! And once again, a big thank you to Katy for being the beautiful model that she is!

Here comes the summer...

Its great to get a little time out at the weekends. Last Sunday, Katy, Mrs H and myself visited Grey's Court just outside Henley on Thames. A fabulous 16th century mansion set among some fantastic gardens. And the sun shone!

Daisies...

Katy and the daisies

Greys Court is part of the National Trust, these wonderful places can now be enjoyed by all of us... and its a great chance to take photos too!

Workflow and the iPad ... part 1: creativity... or coming up with the ideas!

My good friend Paul very kindly gave me a present of an ipad back in December for helping him with a project, namely extending his entire house and making it into a palace! Thank you Paul, the ipad has changed the way I approach my photography.

This is going to be a short series on how I use the ipad for my photography. I hope you enjoy...

What I love about the ipad is its portability and the way it aids my creativity. Before I take a photograph I do a lot of thinking; this is almost as much fun as taking the photos! There are a couple of apps that I constantly use for this, they are Penultimate and Moodboard

 Penultimate.

I like to think things through. When I do, I get a better result and better photographs and that makes life good. I sketch down my thoughts before a shoot. I use lots of small blank paper notebooks; they fit into my pocket and go everywhere with me.

I get an idea, I write it down or sketch it out. On the ipad I use Penultimate for sketching. Developed by Cocoabox, this app is great for sketching out ideas, arranging them in notebooks, email them as a pdf. You can ave them to your ipad photos, You can draw in different colours and line widths and on different paper types.

They have recently added a feature to allow you to import a photo as your paper background. This is a great idea as I have added my logo as mine. In a nutshell you use this as you would use a notebook. Simple as that.

 Sometimes I make simple quick sketches...
thats a screenshot on the right

And other times I let my imagination run wild;

the end product is always the same: I try

to use the sketch to pre-visualise what the final photograph will be

I set up a different notebook for each shoot, do my sketching for a couple of days, or however long it is. Then I email the notebook, either in its entirety or page by page to my desktop and print out the notebook. The pages then become a shooting list I can scribble notes on as I shoot.

When I was younger, okay, much younger, I used to enjoy having a scrapbook. I would cut out pictures of the day and stick them in the scrapbook. I kept going back to them and adding more pictures. It was great fun in itself. Moodboard Pro is ideal for this sort of thing.

Moodboard Pro

I also use Moodboard, another wonderful app from A Tiny Tribe that is what it says it is; a moodboard for the ipad. Anyone familiar with the world of interior design, art, architecture and photography will be familiar with what a moodboard is.

Just like my scrapbooks, it is like a big board that you pin ideas to to help set the tone for a project. (By the way - thats a pre-view of the next Moodboard app icon above - you saw it first here!)

They can be images, notes, colours and photos. Photos can be imported from the ipad library, images can be taken from the built in web browser. They can also be cropped, scaled and rotated however you like. Its great to be able to send a moodboard to a client by email.

A recent triathlon shoot

A future gothic shoot

I think it is safe to say that Moodboard and Penultimate are apps that I use all the time and could not live without. My only criticism is I would like Penultimate to be able to save to Dropbox and Springpad, two other great apps. Definitely worth checking these out in the App Store.

Cocoabox are at http://www.cocoabox.com/

A Tint Tribe are at http://www.atinytribe.com/

 

Congratulations to the Happy Couple...

...and thanks for the day off!

Our good friends Patrick and Jane and their three neighbours organised a street party to celebrate the Royal Wedding. A fabulous barbeque, salad, and amazing dessert and great drinks was the order of the day.

I enjoy going to these parties where you don't know everyone, you make some very interesting people. There was even a raffle in aid of the Iain Rennie Hospice that raised over £500! Not bad, sadly we didn't win, but the top prize was an Xbox 360!

We ended the day with a cream tea and I even managed to arrange a photo shoot with another triathlete... watch this space. A very big thank you to Patrick and Jane and their neighbours for organizing a great day, and of course our very best wishes to the Happy Couple...

A new arrival...

Say hello to Minky, the newest arrival in the Hannan household. She has been with us for about three months now and is definitely part of the family!

A Jack Russel Terrier, she was a rescue dog. We are told she was abandoned and found wandering the streets. We think she is only about a year old, but fortunately she is house trained!
.

Minky #1

Minky #2

Now if we could only get her to stop chasing pigeons...

It's a Set-Up!

If you are like me, you have difficulty remembering exactly the lighting set of each shot you do. Drawing diagrams is not for me - I can draw, but for some reason I just don't when it comes to shooting. So the next logical thing is to take a photograph of the set up. For me that is so much easier. And while I may not remember the exact setting of each light, its enough to go on should I ever need to revisit a shoot. But saying all that, the best thing is to keep it simple.

My favourite set up is two lights, one main light and a second rim light. I usually have them opposite each other and the model in between. I'll move around until I get the best position and then just shoot away.

Here are a few of my set up shots. Some are good photographs in their own right.

Patrick and Jane

studio shot with multiple lights, an unusual

set up for me as I tend to go on location

Jane

On location with one SB800, held by Katy,

we both ran beside as Jane cycled.

This was one of the out takes -

a set up shot here was hit and miss!

Paul

my two light favoured set up,

SB800, shoot through umbrella,

Vivitar 285, gridded just outside the patio door.

Jerry

Again, the two light set up, gridded Vivitar 285

SB800 in reflecting umbrella

Sherie

 again, the two light set up,

this time the second light was flagged.

Ria

two light set up...

Fr Chris

one light in a small softbox on Fr Chris,

a gridded Vivitar on the Crucifix

Katy

one Ezybox softbox with an SB800

The Myrke

one Ezybox softbox again.

The finished shots are after the jump. What do you do to remember your set up? Diagrams? Photos? or do you have some other way?