Video Shizzle

The 5d mark 2 came out and this happened….

….sort of.

Everyone went a bit nuts. It shot video, but when it first came out it didn’t do it very well, wrong frame rates, no control over anything. But large sensor HD video in a camera you already own, who wouldn’t be happy. Canon released a firmware to fix a number of the problems, at the time the main one being no manual control over exposure.

The reason everyone went nuts was simply the ‘look’ of the video, a very difficult thing to define. One aspect of the look is the depth of field in dslr video it is very narrow, something we do in TV with a Pro35 adaptor.

So why use a mahoosive camera with a heavy adapter an crazy expensive prime lenses when you can shoot with a £500 camera? Several reasons.

It’s got all the right buttons in the right places

Timecode, really important when you generate a lot of footage.

Size, the size and weight of the camera makes it very stable. My pet hate with DSLR footage is the tiny frame jitter that occurs if you don’t stabilise them properly.

Sound, yeah you can record sound into a DSLR, you can also poke your eye out with a spoon, it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Proper eyepiece viewfinder, A DSLR screen is just not a good replacement, I like monochrome screens to focus on with peaking controls.

Focus, lenses built for video cameras are easier to focus due to the fact that stills lenses make significant changes to the focus with minimum input, meaning you can spank the focus way off with the tiniest movement

There are more issues such as the lack of optical filtering inside DSLRs, the recording format and so on.

But all of that said it is a tool for a job, applied to the right job they are fantastic. But you do have to add a lot of crap to make them work like a video camera.

Follow focus, silly viewfinder thing, shoulder rig and many more things that can be added, it is an accessory nerds wet dream!

Anyway, I got my 5d to take stills with, when I got it the fact that it shot video was secondary. I tried it out on a variety of random stuff around the garden. The first proper test I did was using a borrowed 7d with Ziess prime lenses, which give a very nice image, but are a bit pricey!

Ivana

I wanted to try out the ‘motion portrait’ idea, no narrative, no set-up or concept, just someone moving instead of static for a head-shot portrait. So I organised a shoot with Ivana, the set-up for the shot is really simple, a living room with a massive bay window and net curtains provided completely even soft light. The camera was put on a shoulder rig and set to record 50 fps.

There are two reasons to do this, normal video runs at 25fps, shooting at 50 and playing back at 50 gives super smooth video playback, or you can conform the 50 frames to play back at 25fps, which means half speed slow motion….and EVERYBODY loves slow motion….the downside is that you have to record at a smaller frame size. The full size HD image is 1920 x 1080 but at 50fps you get 1280 x 720.

The result is exactly as described, it is a ‘motion portrait’ just two differently framed headshots posing and moving. I would probably make it shorter to get the point across quicker.

Colleen

After I had completed that one I set up a shoot with Colleen to do a more structured video shoot, still motion portraits, still no narrative but a greater variety of shots and movement. I used Barone’s studio in Wolverhampton as I know there is a really good natural light corner. I also took along a couple of Kino Flo lights as they are daylight balanced and really soft and flattering which suits the nature of DSLR video and also balances out nicely with the natural light.

I also got in Becky Hunting to do the make up, she was using her airbrush which is the technique of choice for film and TV makeup artists now as the higher detail image picks up more flaws…

The first sequence was shot against the light with two Kino lights as fill, so the result is backlit morning sunshine style with detail filled in to reduce the contrast.

The only direction given was ‘it’s morning, you are waking up’ Once the first shot had been done I repeated the action across a variety of close ups and then allowed that to develop into the second sequence.

We shot another similar sequence in the natural light corner, this one was more of a ‘models motion portrait’ showing how they move, allowing you to figure out how you might shoot stills. This one is presented with a mix of slow motion and normal speed video. It does feature some of my pet hate camera jitter, most of the video was shot on a tripod and I didn’t have a shoulder rig handy so I had to go hand held…….

I shot another video with Colleen but didn’t do anything with it for ages. It was purely a test but the idea was to use the video frame upright, to match the portrait/landscape idea with photography. So a whole bunch of outfits, one setup, I said ‘go’ and sat back

Raphaella

I had set up my second stills shoot with Raphaella at Hallam Mill, an amazing natural light location. The intention was to shoot some dance styled images. We got chatting about the other videos I had shot, when Raph works she is quite often dancing anyway so I suggested capturing a quick bit of video. No music, no rehearsal, I just said can you dance for about 3 minutes. Off she went and my jaw hit the floor. A complete coherant dance without any warning! So I shot a couple more takes of the dance and quickly thought up a few more shots to provide an opening to the sequence.

I put up a quick edit of the video and it proved rather popular In the original I had used a piece of temp music and left it on the original upload, but that is not entirely legitimate. For other videos I had been using Creative Commons music which is a great idea and allows you to share content with a variety of licences that allow sharing or derivative works to be made, so I replaced the original music. I also created two alternative versions, on which is a single take of Raphaellas Dance and another which is an alternative music of the video with a track from mobygratis.com  another great service where you can licence certain moby track in non profit work.

Monika

I had shot Monika before so I knew how she worked and I wanted to shoot similar videos to the previous ones. I own a lensbaby which is a great fun thing to use for stills, manual only, the aperture has to be swapped by hand and there is a crazy out of focus area around the edge of the image. Why not try it on video……

The set up was very simple, a bright natural light corner of the studio had two poly boards and two kinos set up so the light was almost completely wrapping around. It was overexposed to drop out detail and then shot, some shots from a tripod, some stood up high. Maintaining any sort of focus on the lensbaby is a pig, but it is not about getting it all sharp all of the time with that lens.

Another vid with Monika was a very simple setup, the lighting was almost the same as above (this one was actually shot first) with natural light, reflectors and kinos. The exposure was set correctly this time, although the sun did come out half way through a take, but I can’t control the sun……..yet.

Then the final video of the day was a kind of fake apartment set, trying to change the look and feel of the same space. I shot this one in monochrome, which is much more relaxing as you can actually tell when shots are focussed on the DSLR screen. I shot it all in full HD too

Raphaella Again

This one was a bit different, didn’t want to shoot a straight forward dance video again, I wanted a bit more structure again. I had shot at a fantastic location in Lincoln, a massive house with awesome natural light, great backdrops and features, so I booked back into there. We talked more about the sequence of events and backstory, and then Raphaella interpreted that into a kind of dance movement thing. I had a set number of shots and ideas I wanted to get and then added a bunch as we were going through the sequence. The whole thing was shot in sequence to try and get as close to continuity as possible. Which, I will be honest, is not something I really concentrate on enough when I am shooting these videos…

Again all shot in monochrome, it’s not just the focus issues that I do this for, I actually planned it for the look and the location, knowing how the light would be coming through the windows. There is a lot more mobile camera work, with a lot of this one shot on the shoulder rig, making it a bit more dynamic.

Katy

After shooting that one I didn’t do much video, had a load planned but they fell through for one reason or another, so early on this year I thought I needed to do another, I got in touch with Katy, another dancer, who I had spoken to a long while back about shooting some video. I had an idea, I knew the right location so we got it organised and I started planning. About a week before the shoot I had another idea that I thought I would test quickly. That ended up becoming the main focus of the shoot.

I wanted to use a projector as a light source, I had done it before on other shoots but I wanted to have the projector image moving and reacting to the music. This was also the first video where I played back the final music that was going to be used during the performance. I set up a small video sequence with lots of glitchy noise and randomness to the music piece, the idea was to attach my laptop to the projector and play the footage back onto the wall with Katy infront.

I love the end result, as usual plenty of things I would do differently but I still really like it, each time Katy performed the track was played from start to finish with me either taking static shots or following the action, a bunch of close ups were shot without the dancing but just Katy with the projected light. Then another idea sprung up as I was taking a shot. I got out the 550d and shot a slow motion sequence, stuck that into the laptop and projected it back onto the wall so Katy was dancing with slomo self. I didn’t cut to much of that into the final piece but there are a couple of shots in there.

For the edit there were too many moment I wanted to cut in, but I kept everything fairly simple. It is not a continuity edit as I think the jump cuts work well for the piece. Once the main dance was done I added a couple of shots to form an intro and outro and stuck some titles on. I also like the slightly blurry titles I did, simple but effective.

I should probably try and include some more useful information, feel free to ask any questions if you have them.  kthxbai  :)

Here are some pics what I have taken this year……Part 1……

Haven’t been able to get out and shoot as much as I wanted this year due to one thing or another so here are a few that I did manage.

Sharon

I had been talking to Sharon about a shoot for ages,finally got together at Smile Studios near Lincoln and did these.

Using the location is important here, no point going into an amazing real world house/studio and shooting boring straight on shots all the time, this is the old sticking the door in the corner of the frame and tilty camera effect for the sneaky voyeur style. The next two images have Sharon engaging with the camera. The lighting is all natural through the three panes of glass in the bay window, which gives a key and back light, then the light fills the room and bounces back for the fill, simple really.

A different style for this, I love the step in the wall so wanted some shadow going on, a big single softbox throws the shadow across the step and makes Sharons face stand out against the background.

Then of course the obligatory crazy flare into the lens stuff. This one was done differently though, the sun wasn’t playing ball, so I set up a light and took the softbox off so it was bare flash, placed a large reflector behind me to bounce it back in then balanced all off the lighting so I maintain a bit of detail out of the window. I lost a bit too much detail on Sharon’s hair and her arm, but I didn’t have any more room to go back as I was already inside the wall…….

Mimi

I managed to inadvertantly but blatently copy someones style here!

There was supposed to be another rim light firing here but the ones I chose didn’t have it, I prefer the assymetrical look, I wish I had shot some without the rim lights at all as I quite like the sharp defined edge on the right. The shot is simply a beauty dish almost front on, and softbox to the side. Processing involved making the shadows cyan and stripping out most of the colour.

Then using the same light I went for some deep, dark shadows. The beauty dish was gridded and used in close againsa dark backdrop.

So all you need is one light and a denim jacket, oh and a Mimi. I went nuts with the sharpening and contrast on the denim jacket areas to make them more punchy, then my usual ctrl+alt del colour processing.

Shaz

Some more crazy flare, stuff boshed infront of lens, desaturated stuff. These were shot at Brightlights studio with Shaz, they have the coves and the sets but I started shifting things around and shot in the back room which has the interesting windows.

Balancing the light flare, the flash, the thing I was holding infront of the lens got a bit tricky, I seem to remember I was trying to balance on one knee at the time too…..and you thought that jaunty angle was on purpose, it was me falling over….

Rebacca Amy

Sorted out a last minute shoot, I had a studio booked but no one to shoot so I got Rebecca in, who I had been meaning to get in touch with for a while. I got in some makeup artistry from Karen, so with both of those on board I should at least look barely competent!

First up, some ringflash crazyness, from previous shooty sessions at Hallam Mill I remembered the blue hammerite finish on the heating unit and thought that would look sparkly and good with direct light.

Not much to say, simple direct ringflash light, big smile, job done. Layering up the outfits helps a bit with ringflash to give some shape and depth, shooting very close up with distinct angles through the shot makes it nice and dynamic. Then with some makeup and hair tweaks some more ringflash against an old white wall. I had thought of just bleaching it out but it was made from a variety of panels so I included the seams in the shot.Its the flaws that make it more interesting to me.

Then I did some more of my models pushed off the chair thing, there must be some kind of story behind this but I can’t figure it out. I have never actually seen anyone casually hanging around after they have fallen of a chair. They usually get up and take a swing at whoever is closest to them shouting ‘I’ll take ya all on’……….

Technique is simple, get old brown carpet, put beauty dish pointing down towards model with a grid on for sharp edged shadows, overexpose a bit, then vintage it up in Photoshop. Then tried similar lighting in a standing up shot, need to get it a bit more on axis I think but the effect is almost there.

Then, just for a complete change we went all soft and floaty, quite nice shooting very different styles all together.

Technique is simple here too, set up beauty dish behind me a long way back as a fill to balance the daylight, set exposures to balance the two, swear loads as it changes between each shot, and even more when the perfect pose has the blown exposure. Eventually you will end up with one you like!

Similar things going on here, the fill light is behind me again, but much closer this time which you can see in the increased contrast and shadows it casts. The natural light is still coming in through the window and providing a backlight but the sun flare is artificial. A small low powered head high on a lightstand pointing straight at the camera, then the stand is Photoshopped out, everything else is lost in the flare.

Monika and Joceline

I spent a fun weekend shooting Monika again and then meeting Joceline. I sorted out another shoot at Smile Studios in Lincoln with Monika, I wanted to do some more natural light shots and I wanted some geeky, quirky expressions. Monika is perfect for this as she can do the serious look and then dive straight into cut and quirky.

The shot above is very very simple, all natural light. The only control I took over it was to pull down the blinds on the back windows to diffuse the light a little, the rest of the shot relies on the light that bounces around the room. The windows were slightly overexposed to remove any detail and to help light the shadow areas.

Using exactly the same lighting I took some closeups with my 70-200 lens, the aim was to have a load of foreground and background out of focus. The shot above has had grain added in Photoshop.

The shot above has a reflector added to even out the contrast slightly, the shot was also overexposed and the sunlight was flared into the lens to further reduce contrast. Then I went a bit nuts in Photoshop and stripped out most of the colour.

The ultimate version of this is flaring the light right into the lens and washing out almost all of the detail. It can be a bit hit an miss as the light, the pose and the focus don’t always work together on each image. The above image has had some contrast adjustments and sharpness around Monika’s eyes and the glasses to make them stand out.

Another way to potentially bodge up your shots is to shoot with reflections in the glass, I move around a lot when I am shooting so I thrashed out a sequence of images as Monika moved around on the bed, all but the first few had a really bright reflection obscuring Monika, the joy of digital is you can check each image, rework the angles and limits of movement and shoot them again. So we talked about the limits of movement and we shot another sequence. The processing on the above image is very simple, remove saturation, add colour washes, brighten and a little contrast, then sharpen around the glasses again to make them jump.

Next up was the ringflash, I wanted to try and get a slightly softer version of a ringflash shot, there isn’t much point talking about the setup, stick the ringflash on the front, set the power take shots! Just remember to make adjustments if you move closer or further away. I love the wall paper at the location and made sure it became part of the composition. Monika performed a great variety of wide eyed and quirky expressions.

The processing was really simple, I switched the white balance to give a warmer look than the auto white and desaturated the image. That was it. Monika was sat right against the wall so the falloff in light was perfect for the balance of the image. I love the muted colours and the sharpness of the image.

More from the set can be found here.

Joceline

The very next day I shot with Joceline. She is a fantastic model and at 6’1 I got a bit of a crick in the neck As a dancer she also has fantastic poise and balance, as demonstrated in this image.

Seriously, you try doing that. Then try it in heels! The lighting is ultra simple, beauty dish to camera right and nothing else. The processing is simple desaturation and cleaning up the background.

The above shot is a simple setup with two softboxes behind and two large polyboards infront, this gives a really soft even lighting, but stil gives some shape as the softboxes act as back light.

The above image is along a very similar theme, trying to even out all of the tones in the image, this does it with more directional light to create shape. The main light is natural light through the window just to the left of Joceline. This is then balanced with a beauty dish firing light from all the way across the room, we had to diffuse the beauty dish with a couple of softbox covers to reduce the light output enough, the shadow from this light can be seen on the backwall, it’s purpose is a fill light to bring up the contrast and create a grey and white image, rather than a black and white image.

The effect is more pronounced in the above image. No changes were made to the lighting but as Joceline is closer to the fill light it is brighter so lowering the contrast ratio between the natural light and the flash.

After that I went a bit nuts and flared the light straight into the lens, the bounced light is coming from two large polyboards and a piece of aluminium giving the sharp staps of light. Not to everyones tastes but I love it.

With very similar lighting I also shot close ups, the processing is simple removing saturation and adjusting levels to bring the contrast back into the image. More from the set can be found here.

Raphaella

Yep, another awesome shoot with Raphaella. We spent the morning shooting some video which will be the subject of another post, but we spent the afternoon shooting stills. This is the reason to work with really good models, the work rate and variety that can be shot in a day is amazing.

First up is an ultra simple natural light image, the bedroom window at the fantastic Smile Studio has light coming in from the front and two sides, so it gives a great wraparound light, I pulled the blinds down on the back part of the window to control the amount of light and to soften it a little. The light from the side windows then frames Raph against the backdrop, the processing is simply a case of removing most of the colour.

The light means I can leap about the room shooting from almost anywhere and Raph can work in the whole space without limitation, in the above image the background is slightly overexposed as I adjusted to make sure there was detail captured at the front of the image. The slash of light on the floor is a little annoying, but these images are shot in a very fluid way, so it is about capturing the moment rather than the ultra perfect image.

I like the vent in the shot, lots of people said get rid of it, some people said keep it. I framed it in on purpose so it stays I shot a number of images in this sequence with loads of space in the frame, I also tried to use the crease in the wall as a framing element. What I think is amazing is how Raph can make a blank expression look really interesting. The light was really simple, a single flash head aimed up at the roof away from Raph at a 45 degree angle. This gave a really soft even light with a slight amount of direction to create shape in the image.

Exactly the same lighting but a much closer shot, I love the wallpaper in this room, the processing here is designed to work with the really soft light and the slight colour in the wallpaper. The only real change in Photoshop is a drop in the saturation, otherwise the shot is pretty much out of the camera.

The two images above are both shot with the ringflash, the light is coming from the camera position so shadows are all but eliminated, this gives a really even tone to the image, but I have kept the crease in the wall in as a compositional element again, I just think it creates an interesting line through the image. The two shots are processed with different colour settings, both have noise added but the upper image has warm tones and the lower cool tones which I think suit the expressions better.

 

 

Raph does a bit of glamour! The two shots above were shot in the amazing tiled bathroom at the studio. Crazy green tiles and retro styling. I loved the backdrop but went back and forth  a lot on how to light it. Directional light didn’t seem to work as the bathroom is long and fairly narrow, so not a lot of places that lights can go. So I went for the ringflash which REALLY brought out the green in the tiles. The processing for the images above involved some exposure and contrast changes, a slight warming up of the colour temperature and then adding a slight white vignette around the edges of the image. More from the set can be found here.

Catch Up

Lots of beer, pizza and Cheesy Wotsits have been consumed since the last update, so here are some more piccies and some stuff about how I did shoot them……yes beer prevents correct usage of the english language.

Monika

I had shot a couple of motion portraits and I wanted to do some more, this post isn’t about that though, it’s about the stills I took on the same day. On the whole the stills were taken with exactly the same lighting setups as the video, so it is all natural light, continuous light from Kinoflos and reflectors.

The above was taken in the corner of Barone’s studio, with my favourite natural light coming in from camera left, this bounces around the three white walls and fills the shadows, but I also had two large poly board reflectors and a kinoflo to my right at 45 degrees to increase the fill and lower the contrast in the image but maintain the shape. with that light I could get 1/160 at f4 ISO was only 125.

I shot a whole range with the same lighitng setup, it lights the whole area which means you can be flexible in where you shoot from and where the model moves to. I kept some of the colour in the image above, I love the look of the soft lighting and the desaturated colour.

Iveta

Dynamic, lithe, tall and beautiful. Nope I am none of these things, that is why I stay behind the camera, seriously try and find a picture of me where I am not hidden behind something. Luckily Iveta is dynamic, lithe, tall and beautiful.

She also like heaters So I left it in the shot. The above image is really simple, beauty dish off to camera right and nothing else, processing is simple some healing brush on the background and a little desaturation on the colour, that is all it needs.

The same goes for the above image, keep it simple, this shot has a flash added for fill, it is a beauty dish placed a long way across the room so the light has plenty of room to spread around, the area is surrounded by three white walls so it bounces the light around loads.

The above image was a bit of a test with my Raw software, the shot was a test from a sequence. The aim was to flare the light and keep detail in the front with reflectors. I pushed the exposure and contrast as far as I could on this image and desaturated, I quite like the final look.

This image shows the look I was aiming for, much softer less contrasty and a much cleaner look overall, I kept the colour temperature warm so the whites look slightly orange and the skin tone looks healthy.

I went the opposite way with the colour temperature on this image, the lighting is natural light, reflectors and a beauty dish firing in from camera right. the two objects in frame are fans. I flared the natural light slightly from the window that is just out of shot to give the washed out appearance in the image, using the flash kept the contrast on Iveta. More from the set can be found here.

Alix

Choppers on location. After my first shoot with Alix we thought the chopper theme should be done on location. So we scouted a few out around Wolverhampton, purely by accident we found the broken down old building that we used. It was a proper crack den too, full of needles and stuff. I only take people to the classiest places.

As you can see, the previous residents looked after the place….Lighting was natural through the windows and a single flash from the opposite side and slightly behind, that gave some shape and definition and prevented Alix from dissapearing in the background.

With just the natural light a more contrasty and dramatic image can be achieved, I chose to finish quite a lot of the images where Alix’s eyes were obscured by the helmet.

We also found some funky woodland by the side of the road, not sure what the other people in the layby thought when we headed off into the woods with a bag full of weapons, but no police helipcopter this time so it must be a normal occurance in the area. All natural light, desaturated colour, I chose to shoot mid move to make the pose look a little more dynamic. It looks like she is walkiing in one direction and is mid turn.

Scarlett

I shot with Scarlett at a studio day at Barone’s, it was during the winter travel chaos at the start of the year and I ended up shooting later on in the evening, which meant I couldn’t use the wonderful natural light. I had to get the flash out…

The above image is shot with a really simple setup, two large poly reflectors either side of me, pointing in towards Scarlett, two softboxes behind firing into each reflector. This gives the rim light and a very soft flat light from the front, add in the desaturation and it results in a really clean look.

Then I went for a completely different style, grimy, gritty and a little bit dirty. Add a gaudy red carpet, a random chair on the floor and process the image loads and the above is the result. The light is fairly flat from camera left, but the falloff concentrates the light on Scarletts face, then the contrast in the processin gmake the image look punchier.

The gritty style was also the aim with the above image, using the shadow to hide the model, the eyes and the hair almost obscuring her face. Lighting was a beauty dish with a grid positioned high up pointing down towards Scarlett, the height was kept in the image as I think it balances it nicely with her crouched pose and the red carpet filling the bottom quarter of the image.

More coming soon when I stop eating cheesy puffs and get some editing done……

Half a year delay

Oops, not kept this thing up to date. Not that anyone reads it of course, but it’s nice to think I am not just talking to myself…..

Since my last update I have shot loads, so here is a quick rundown of what, and why and a bit of how….

Chloe

I had been trying to get outside of the studio a bit and shoot in real locations, this set was shot at the models house, I went for a naturalistic, slightly voyeuristic look by framing in the door, I directed Chloe to ignore the camera for a number of shots and then engage.

Lighting for the set is mainly natural, the white sheets and walls provide a simple reflector, filling in the shadows.

The above shot is the same setup but with the settings tweaked a bit in Photoshop, a lot of the colour was removed from the images to help even out the tones. Half the light in the scene was provided by Chloe’s smile. The rest of the set can be seen here.

Ivana

I had been meaning to shoot more test footage for some motion portraits so I got in touch with Ivana, again shooting at her home to provide a real backdrop. I was using the Canon 7d with Zeiss prime lenses and a Zacuto shoulder rig for the video and I used the lenses for a few stills too. Stunning image quality but darn hard to focus with.

The above image was shot using natural light through a large bay window, shot on the Zeiss 85mm, the depth of field is pretty much from the front of her eyelashes to the front of her eye!

Again the above image is natural light with some available light to fill the background, colours were kept warm and slightly muted, Ivana has fantastic hair which is better shown off in the video, which can be found at this link.

Jill

The next shoot was with Jill, I was trying to maintain a theme across a couple of shoots, so I aimed for a very similar style to the shoot with Chloe, shot on location, natural even light and muted colours.

The above image was lit with a single flash head and kept very soft for a more natural image. The walls in the room took care of the fill. The rest of the set can be found here.

Holly and Katy

Next up was a studio day shoot with Ivory Flame and Katy Pectin, both awesome models, and the location was a bar with lots of cool backdrops. I wanted to get the ringflash out and shoot something a bit different to my previous shoots with Holly.

Not really much to say about ringflash, test shot for exposure, start boshing out the images, changing the light power if you move forward or back.

I also wanted to use the awesome wooden floors in the place, the light is coming from a window behind and a large softbox in front of Holly, again the processing removed a lot of the colour.

Next up was Katy, who has a dance background which is kind of obvious from this image.

Lighting was a simple softbox to one side, the processing consisted of balancing the contrast and exposure out.

This image was shot with natural light only coming through a tall narrow window, the curtains in the background give a very soft light into the back of the image too.

Then it all went a bit nuts and we shot some accidental raunchy images! We were talking about horror films at the time so not sure where this came from, I do admit to getting Katy to bite her own arm though. More images from the day can be found here and here.

FireSecret

Next up was a studio shoot, I did a few on similar themes to previous shoots with natural light and desaturation. I also chucked a few chairs around.

Ringflash and a backlight completed this shot, the carpet was red but that was a bit distracting in the image, I like this contrasty look.

Then I shot on the funky red carpet, processing includes removing loads of the colour but retaining the red and adding a pale vignette.

Raphaella

Next up was my first shoot with Raphaella, who is quite simply amazing, she works so much I had shot every card I own, I even had to go back to my old 512MB and 1GB cards, you can only get 16 shots on these with a 5D! My intention had been to spend the whole day up an a hill near the place I grew up, but it rained non stop all morning so the contingency plan was to shoot in the house I grew up in, we only used one room that had been emptied due to an imminent house move. It’s amazing to see the amount that can be shot in a very limited space.

This was all natural light with a load of processing to remove colour and control the contrast in the image.

Then the complete opposite with some crazy ringflash, the contrast of the purple to the muted colours works really nicely for me and I was trying to shoot at all sorts of odd angles, the camera was upside down for a good few shots…

Then back to a softer look for this one, it is a combination of natural light and fill flash, the room is an attic room so the roof slopes in almost from the floor and provides an amazing reflector, an on camera flash was pointed back to the roof and shot with TTL metering. I love the tones and textures in the above shot. It is actually one of my favourite shots I have ever taken.

With the same lighting, the natural light is giving nice shape and direction to the lighting and the fill is just evening out the contrast.

The ringflash came out again for some gritty, contrasty shots. The second shot shows how Raphaella can really express emotions for the camera with a simple look. Once we had shot all of these the rain was just about stopping so we headed out for the location, a fantastic old sandstone hill, with a quarry and loads of really good woodland.

Natural light only, I used my 70-200 lens and shot through some leaves to give more depth, foreground, subject and background.

Some more natural light, standing Raphaella in a beam of light coming through the clouds helps to pick her out as the background is out of the sunlight.

We headed to the quarry and shot loads of dance poses, these are natural light helped out with a flash off to camera right, I shot wide to show the scale and closer to concentrate on Raphaella.

We shot up on some of the rock outcrops, the light was filtering through the treetops perfectly and really gave some shape to these images. I was shattered at the end of the day but still had to back up and organise 36GB of images. I normally end up with about 15 – 20 useable images from a day, I had about 100 from this shoot!

Cat and Katy

The next shoot was going to be 2 models in one day. I shot at Barones again in Wolverhampton, which is a great space for natural and artificial light shots. The first set was with Cat, a fitness model who puts my exercise regime to shame. She has amazing eyes so I obviously needed to focus on that. Becky was in doing the makeup and the idea was to shoot super contrasty images with loads of detail burned out.

The light was all ringflash and the burning out of the detail is simply done by overexposing slightly, as all the light is coming from the front very little detail is picked up in the skin.

Then using the same makeup I shot some natural light images, the walls surrounding the area are white so a really nice fill light is created and those eyes pounce of the image…..Hang on I don’t have a fitness regime….Next up I shot Katy, she is an English model living in America, but she tours around a lot. She specialises in Art Nude so that is what we shot….I used as much natural light as possible.

Both the above are simply natural light through the window, I have allowed space in the frame to see the source of the light and show the texture of the building.

Then we broke out the lights and Katy threw some crazy shapes on the wall, Light is a single large octa softbox. I have avoided removing the paper rolls at the top of the frame for reasons that are beyond me, I just prefer the shots that way??? The rest of the sets can be found here and here.

Caroline

Caroline contacted me for a shoot and I had Hallam Mill in Stockport booked. It is an amazing space, an old warehouse with epic amounts of natural light coming through the windows.  The majority of shots were natural light only, I experimented a bit with crazy framing, strange focus and flaring the light. A style I really like.

This was natural light with a reflector bunged in, the backlight has flared into the lens and washed out the image. I also got Caroline to pose slightly awkwardly with her feet turned in.

The image above was one of my attempts at odd posing, simply having the model looking away from the camera, turning the shot into more of an environmental portrait, again all natural light, as the two corners of the building have windows you get a version of key and fill lighting (if I had been on the other side of Caroline that is). In this case they create a rim light that gives loads of shape to Carolines outline, the fall off in focus also helps to make her stand out.

This next one was an attempt to alter the focal point, obviously the model should be in focus….or should she. I like the depth that this technique creates. More of this set can be found here.

Colleen

I wanted to shoot some more motion portrait tests so I banged out a casting call. Colleen responded, I had seen a lot of her work before and had wanted to sort out a shoot anyway, the main focus of the day was the videos but I also did some stills. I will talk in detail about the vids on another post.

The above image surprised me a bit, when it went up it was responsible for quadrupling the number of people viewing my flickr! It is simply ringflash, natural light and an awesome model.

An awesome model who is quite tricky to keep up with This is another of my fave images, although it is slightly bonkers, the subject is hardly in the shot and her feet seem to be coming in at an impossible angle. But I love it. The rest of the set is here. The videos can be found on Vimeo.

Alice

I got the opportunity to shoot with Alice which was fantastic as it gave me an opportunity to shoot some real varied stuff. She is very creative and open to all sorts of ideas, there is a shot somewhere out there of her cutting a fish up on a bandsaw! Alice had some fantastic locations nearby which were really inspirational.

The first was a scrapyard filled with textured backdrops, muted colours and all sorts of fun stuff, the above shot was purely natural light with colours aged in Photoshop.

We also went to this fantastic old glasshouse. Most of the windows were broken, we started off shooting inside and I was struggling to find the right angle to shoot from. I stepped outside and saw the frosted look to the dirty glass and shooting Alice obscured from the waist up and diffused through the glass provided an interesting slant on the idea of shooting the subject out of focus. The rest of the set can be found here.

Jen

I had been talking to Jen for a long time about sorting out a shoot. I wanted to do some classy glam images. I used another real location and got Becky Hunting in for the makeup. Jens other half was there too, so I took the opportunity to bung him in some shots.

The above was shot using two lights, a beauty dish was fired across the room at Stu, and a small softbox at fairly low power was aimed at Jen, you can see the different quality of light from the shadows on the floor.

Then I shot the opposite, Jen in the foreground, I cranked up the power of the softbox and kept it fairly close to a front on light for Jen. The rest of the set can be found here.

Raphaella 2

I sorted out another shoot with Raph in Hallam Mill again. She is fantastic to work with in a very freeform way, the natural light really helps to be flexible with movement and framing. Many of the shots I used from this set were outside the area that I had lit. I preferred the captured moments, and the slightly chaotic shots with lights and stuff still in the background. I tried to shoot more images that took advantage of Raphaella’s dance background.

This is shot using the corner windows in Hallam again with the stunning wrap around light, giving the edge lighting.

This set was actually shot quite close to the end of the day, the sun was coming straight through this window so I shot straight into it, which meant I couldn’t see properly for quite a while!

The above shot was simply natural light again and Raph’s awesome dance skills and graceful posing.

Another shot showing her amazing ability to perform, although her face is almost hidden in the shadows the emotion still comes across.

The above shot was one of the captured moments. We had shot by a mirror on the floor and I was looking for some alternative angles, so I stood up on a chair. Raphaella stood up to stretch her legs and we just started shooting again, there is a beauty dish firing from camera left and natural light from the windows all around.

I jumped off the chair and carried on shooting, this time including the light in the background and allowing it to flare the lens a bit.

We shot a load into this mirror, I love the double image and the breaks in the image caused by the mirror surface, this was the lighting I had set up for the freeform images above.  More from the set can be found here. There is also a video here.

Okay, that is enough for now, a few more shoots from 2010 in another post and then I am going to write one all about my motion portraits. Time for beer and pizza now….

Tanzanite Natural Light and Police Chases

Well I wanted to try more natural looking location images. So a church, a derelict mansion house and some old railway lines seemed to fit the bill. Who would have thought we would get chased by  a police helicopter for our troubles! The model is Debs from Net model

We started in an old derelict church, where apparently an old king of Patagonia is buried! Okay the image isn’t just natural light, it has a speedlight through an umbrella to add a bit of direction and contrast.

These were all natural light though.

I also wanted to start adding more depth into my shots, out on location you are rarely limited by space, no back wall to hit. Maybe the odd cliff to walk off though! No such danger in this part of Derbyshire though, so I got out the long lens and zoomed all the way in, making sure there was foreground, midground and background in the composition.

So with that concept in mind we headed off for some railway tracks and shoot something with a loose narrative….I’m not entirely sure what the story is but it definitely requires a beautiful woman in her undercrackers putting on some boots….

 

Then as we were shooting these last few sequences we were finishing up on the railway lines and were joined by an uninvited guest…

…we had finished shooting, packed most of the gear in backs and a police helicopter buzzed past. We thought nothing of it until it returned and hovered over us. It stayed with us for the whole walk back to the car, I thought about getting a shot but I don’t think they would have appreciated having a 200mm Canon pointed at them. On arrival at the cars two knackered looking police officers who had just run around a reservoir looking for us. Apparently someone had phoned in that three suspicious looking people were heading off down the railway lines to commit murder or a bit of terrorism…..We offered them a cup of tea and had a chat about other good locations in the area, they also thought the chopper was a bit of overkill….