133:365 The Ivory Flame

Today was something a bit different, this shot being of the lovely Ivoryflame (holly)

we went to the brickworks in pumpherston and managed to play about for a while with some lights and really love this shot.

it just has a lot of power for me..

127:365 Hot Anna

Today i was lucky enough to be asked to do some shots for Anna.

Anna is such a bubbly, stunning young lady and it was great fun.

very happy with the final shots.

This particular one is straight out the camera.

109:365 A Smile to Melt Hearts

Really happy with todays shot, not often i manage to get a decent shot of this young man smiling :)

He has such an infectious smile in reality but never keeps it for the pics.

Shot in the kitchen with lots of daylight streaming in the windows and a flash with a 1/4 CTO gel on for a bit of warmth.

106:365 The MD

Alex helped Scott and I out earlier today with a few shots at the Black Bull in Mid Calder.

This is pretty much the shot that i done on the LF camera, should be posting that to the LF blog on Monday.

105:365 Monsters v Aliens

Snapped this earlier on in the kitchen it's my daughter and her friend Rebecca :)

So what do you think? Monsters or Aliens :)

097:365 Nom Nom Nom

Struggling for ideas again today and going out tonight so took the opportunity to snap the wean as he muched on a sausage roll

095:365 Swing It

Scott helped me out today with some testing for one of my graded unit shots which will involve someone playing golf.

Strobist wise this shot uses a metz flash camera left on strob (8hz 4 repeats 1/16 power) and flash camera right on full power set to slave on the 4th flash to give a second curtain effect. Added to f8, 0.5 sec exposure got this effect.

Quite happy with this.

087:365 The Brat Pack

Lynn has been going on at me for ages that she wants pics of the kids for to have framed for our bedroom wall...personally i'd rather have some pictures of Cheryl Cole or Kirsten Dunst but ach well i had to do what i was told.

Shot these this evening in the front garden, boy it's cold, exposing pretty much for the clouds but one stop under and using flash to light the kids.

Really happy with how these look, even if Darren wouldn't stay still for longer than a nano-second.

084:365 Little Monkey

Todays image is a bit odd...

Was trying to get a portrait of the wee fella but he really wasn't into it and made off with my flashgun ..

So this is todays upload

079:365 Bogies.....

Well this young man is certainly not all sugar and spice, he's a big monster :)

He's been loving the weather recently even though his nose is still streaming with bogies and snot :)

he loves playing football and has been chasing this ball about the garden all afternoon.

Light from behind from the sun and flash from the front.

078:365 My Princess

Todays shot is of my little Princess Caron...

Taken just as the sun was setting with a high shutter speed and flash to push the background darker and light her up.

This is unusally quite a nice portrait of her, especially in comparison to the last one of her i shot.

071:365 A Guitar Hero

This is another of my large format college project and features my college classmate Ross rocking it out to Guitar Hero at the Kirk of Calder (many thanks to Rev Povey for agreeing to me using the church for this).

I wanted the church to be quite underexposed so dropped the ambient a few stops and then used the flash from the front (bounced into a white card box on the front of the tv) to light Ross and the church and a snooted flash, held by Simon, acts as a rim light.

Shot at 1/15sec, f5.6 using Ilford Delta 100 sheet film and the usual camera kit.

070:365 A Troupe of Hairdressers

The last shot for my portraiture block at college, was for the Group Portrait.



The gorgeous young ladies of the hairdressing unit at the college were happy to help me out.



The pouting is a bit fun :) but i do like this.

063:365 The Pest

I'm a bit late posting this one tonight, mainly due to the pest.

This is my darling wife Lynn for whom i've spent the last couple of nights typing up her college work, when i should really be doing my own (tut tut i know).

I hope she appreciates it.

053:365 Through the Glass

Today is a shot that i have taken to use for a college project.

As part of our portraiture block we have to do a number of portaits (including high key, low key, school portrait, group and corporate portraits). This one is one where we were asked to produce a portrait of a family member of group and as such i have used my daughter Caron as the model.

I really didn't want to do a typical high or low key style portrait for this and found a picture of this style in a book about photographing children.

It's a bit of a strange one and is shot with a wide aperture and a long focal length through glass (which is the light reflection).

I deliberately used our back door with me in the garden and Caron in the house as the light was best there and the window is a bit dirty at the moment due to the dog jumping at it :)

I really like this and think it has a bundle of emotion and grit in it and really makes people think.

051:365 The Photographer

I've got a good few shots from today to play with and decide from but have plumped for this one as I just felt it rocked.

This happy young fellow is Duncan Bennett, my friend and fellow photographer.

Duncan happily agreed to helping me out with this portrait which i'm hoping to be shooting similar for my Graded Unit.

This was shot using the Cambo SC-2 Basic, Rodenstock 210mm Lens and Ilford FP4, processed in Ilfosol HC and Scanned using an Epson V700 scanner.

047:365 The Final Prints

Today I'm still feeling a little bit ropey so not going out of the house to take any shots.

Todays image is of some prints that i had done for my college portraiture block.

Left to right it's the Corporate Portrait of Mhairi Laughlin, the college principal, then the high key image of Charlie, then the low key one of Keith.

They were printed via http://www.dscolourlabs.co.uk/ on Fuji Pearl (Metallic) paper and are a most wonderful 16x12 in size.

For £3 a print they are most definately well recommended.

044:365 Chrissie Red

Today i went for a little trek up to Perth and had the pleasure of a photoshoot with Chrissie Red.

She really is a fantastic model and we went for a look around a couple of old cottages before deciding on one of them.

We then shot a bit of fashion before doing a little nude work.

I'm really happy with the shots and will happily recommend Chrissie to anyone looking for a good model.

More images on my main blog soon.

043:365 Shy

Been telling myself i wanted a portrait of one of the kids for todays picture.

Caron has been in one recently and Darren was asleep so Kyle got volunteeered, but he wasn't for it and was playing shy, so i ended up with a picture of the back of his head as he sat in his room watching tv.

Tomorrow will hopefully be another press style image.

042:365 Human Resources

Todays image is one from a selection that i shot for my college project.

My original intention was to shoot all the portraits in a low key style, but I have since realised that the low key style really isn't flattering to the ladies that i've shot and the more even lighting that i used for the digital shots, and to ensure i had a good image from the shoot, is much more flattering.

I'm contemplating the future for my project, but it's looking likely that i will shoot the ladies in one style and the gents in another as it's much more suited to that.

I also need to do some playing about with the settings as the DOF on the Large Format means that i'm losing too much detail in these close up shots.

This image is of the lovely Joanne, one of the volunteers from a group of HR staff who kindly offered to help me out and sit for my project.