Lara Jade Inspired Shoot

I had quite a bit of trouble with this shoot for starters: I had planned to shoot in 'Willow Woods' but, typical English fashion, the weather was a state. It had actually blown down a tree in front of the main entrance to the particular area I wanted to shoot in, and when we eventually clambered round it, the trees that I had noted to shoot around months before had grown almost twice the size of before.
SO, another thing I learnt from this shoot was to always plan a second location in case the first is unavailable.
But, thank God, I managed to talk my assistant (Jonathan Spencer) into checking if his Father's church hall was available, which it was. I hadn't been in this hall since an art fare last year, but I remembered thinking about using the stage for a shoot.
Originally I planned to use the backside of the stage curtain as the backdrop, but when I saw how little room I had to take the model away from the backdrop I decided to actually open the curtains and have the rear of the hall as the backdrop.
The make-up artist, Gemma Morpurgo, did a remarkable job in making the model, Jasmine Linington, look the part. Jasmine organised the styling for this shoot, and ended up using one of her Mother's old dresses back to front! Don't ask me.. But it worked!
So, here are the pictures, and I decided to use one of the photographs to help launch my website I shall launch soon!

†

Vogue

I just posted my self portraits, and one of them that I didn't put ended up being approved and featured on the main page of 'Italian Vogue' and selected to be in the 'Best of Vogue' category.

†

Self Portraits

As much as I dislike taking self portraits, I managed to work out a really handy tool on my Nikon D700 that enabled me to shoot myself (ouch) without an assistant.
It was a function called 'Interval timer shooting': this was where I set the camera to shoot 5 pictures in the space of 3 seconds, 10 times. You can set it to shoot however many you like, and you don't have to press the shutter, the camera does it for you, and as long as you have the focal point in the area you want, then it will focus properly too!

Anyway, the concept I was going for in this little series was growing up: in some of the compositions I had a disney clock and a marshall amplifier. I have recently just finished with my band, which was my love for several years, so I thought putting the amplifier in shot would be quite relevant. To the other extreme when I was a kid I loved Disney (still do: guilty..)!
After being at PhotoTraining4U I realised I should try to focus more on what the picture actually looks like, rather than the concept: I realised if you have an amazing concept, but an 'easy' photograph, it isn't very effective, especially if the viewer doesn't understand the concept, or hasn't even been shown it. So keeping this in mind, I wanted a concept to stimulate my poses and objects in the composition, but I also wanted the pictures to be pleasing to the eye.

So, here are my top shots:

†

Green Screen

When we first shot for PhotoTraining4U's Apprentice series I was so excited about the thought of using a green screen instead of a white backdrop, for example. What I didn't know was how much time it took in post production to edit onto a background!
Having said this, with a lot of help from Mark Cleghorn and his videos on PhotoTraining4U, plus a little help from graphics savvy, I managed to get it sorted. (just about.. whilst not having the time to finish ALL my preferred model shots.. yet)
So, here they are! With the beautiful Ryo love.

†

Natural Light - RYO LOVE

Hey!

I have finished editing the 'natural light' photographs I shot with Ryo Love, so thought I would post them on here! Only three that fully stood out to me, but I would rather that than dilute the set with not so good shots.

Hope you like them :)

Tom

†