Holliday!

As regular blog readers will know I plan my schedule of posts meticulously months in advance, or is it that I have a completely haphazard workflow and occasionally a series of images pop out that I vaguely try to make hang together, well it's one of them anyway ;-)

Well this post came about because as you can read on the post about my shoot with Katy Cee I had to format a memory card with images on it from last July. Don't worry they were all backed up, the techie in me makes sure that there are at least 3 copies of all images before I wipe a card. So I went back to those images and worked on a few, they were from my trip last year with Holly to Brittany, this led me to work on some images of my trip to Portugal with Holly to visit my good friend Francisca, as well as an image from the drive to the the airport for that trip! So they're all images of Holly abroad, and they also gave me a chance for another dreadfully corny blog post title :-s

On with the show, taken on the way to the airport going to Portugal I just love Holly's pose here and felt it needed that olde worlde look.

Playing with my new filters I purchased recently, Holly really pulls off the gypsy princess look, and that textured wall was just marvellous.

Now the Knights Templar roamed this building many centuries ago and I thought the dark doorway really made Holly stand out, I think they would have approved :)

Now I'm an opportunist getting my images wherever I can. My love of shapes, along with the skylight in Francisca's roof, and the way that Holly's tones complemented those of the floor and walls of Francsica's upper landing made for a perfect ad-hoc shoot.

The same evening the light outside was so wonderful, shapes again, and the way that the shutters of Francisca's house complemented Holly against the contrast of those blocks of blue. The floor is really at quite an angle, but the Photoshop warp tool made quick work of that!

And the following day on the way back to the airport we produced this shot of Holly on the moon :)

Fast-forward to Brittany last July which started off this bout of image processing, two super shots of Holly in the surf. We had just spent 10 minutes under a golf umbrella while it rained, and then suddenly the rain stopped and the light was magnificent. A number of people have asked me what inspirational words I give to models to convey what I am trying to produce, in this case I remember them precisely "Pose, pose, just pose..." ;-)

We spotted this gigantic rock on the first day of our trip when we did some reconnaissance, but it was overlooked by a place where the local youths congregated. We came back another day, nobody was about, so we decided to just go for it. Holly spent quite a bit of time getting over there, we communicated using walkie-talkies, but we knew if someone came around the corner quickly then they'd probably spot her. I think the appropriate word then would have been 'Merd!', fortunately nobody saw us.

I love these images, I think they are all so different - well apart from the fact that they all have Holly in them, she is such a versatile model.

I haven't had the opportunity to work with Holly yet this year, as I've had shoots with lots of great new models, from which images will no doubt appear shortly. However, I have remedied that and will be working with her shortly, and shall also be having a little road trip with Holly and Francisca for three days in Scotland later this year,  I am really looking forward to it and I have no doubt we will produce loads of great images. So it just remains for me to say a big thank you to Holly for creating so many beautiful images with me :)

Have I Got Nudes For You!

The best way of viewing an image is as a print, as the viewer sees it exactly as the author wants them to view it, and I think the best way of showing prints is as a talk where you can explain each of the prints to the audience. So as I produce far more images than I can possibly use in competitions I was very pleased when Bob Moore asked me to do a talk around a year ago for Arden Photo Group.

This led to a talk last November at Wrekin Arts, which led to an invitation to do my talk at another club Whitchurch, and my name has got around and now quite a few more societies want me to see my talk. I talk for around 90 minutes, split into two halves with a break in between and show around 120 of my prints. I show some of my early prints and explain how and why I got into photographing models, and then show the journey through to more recent work including my successful panels.

This is how I start so that members of the audience know what to expect :)

My next talk is at Smethwick Photographic Society on 30th May, and the Royal Photographic Society have kindly decided to advertise the talk in their latest journal, which has generated quite a bit of interest. So I'll need to be on top form then :-S

As the phrase goes "unaccustomed as I am to public speaking", but actually I found I had no problem because I am passionate about my images, and as soon as I put a print up I instinctively know what I want to express, and the audiences have been very receptive and interested in my images.

So here's a few older images from the talk that you may not have seen on this blog, plus there's all my well known and more recent images:

And as quite a few people have asked where I am appearing, here's my current schedule of talks. I shall put these dates in a sidebar to my blog and try to keep it up to date. I think most, if not all, of the venues allow visitors, so feel free to pop along and say hi.

2013
May 30th - Smethwick Photographic Society
July 16th - Dorchester Camera Club
Sept 11th - Dumfries Camera Club
Sept 13th - Carluke Camera Club
Sept 16th - Dundee Photographic Society
Sept 17th -Milngavie & Bearsden Camera Club

Sept 20th - Ilkley Camera Club
Oct 2nd - Lichfield Camera Club
Nov 5th - Yardley Photographic Society
Nov 19th - Solihull Photographic Society
Nov 28th - Beeston Camera Club

2014
Feb 4th - Nantwich Camera Club
Apr 8th - Bognor Regis Camera Club
Apr 16th - Mid-Chesire Camera Club
Apr 28th - Chorley Photographic Society
Jun 23rd - Derby City Photographic Club

All of these bookings have come from word of mouth, so thank you to all those people who have suggested me as a speaker.

Hopefully I am doing my bit to forward the cause of nude photography in the UK.

Any similarity between these clubs and great locations near to them where I could take pictures of models is purely coincidental ;-)

Now You Cee Her!

Well I have a super shoot recently with the beautiful and extremely talented Katy Cee. However during the shoot I had to format an old memory card, and the images on there were from a shoot last July with Holly which I've not really looked at since and definitely haven't blogged them. So turning over a new leaf here's a few images from the shoot with Katy, out in near record time, and coming soon images from the shoot with Holly.

Well not much to say about the pictures apart from why on earth do I leave it so long between shoots with Katy :-S That is a mistake I will definitely not be repeating with two more shoots booked with her already for later this year.

I'm also trying to do different types of images, so while some of these would be recognisable as mine hopefully some of them won't be.

Thanks you again Katy for a super time.

The Only Way Is Down :)

Many of you will know that I am a member of a camera club. Now camera clubs often get a bad press online, common complaints are that they have cliques and run lots of competitions. Now as far as I can tell most of the online photographic forums appear to have cliques, and guess what one of the up and coming model/photographer websites runs every week, a competition!

To be fair I have never found any cliques, just people with common interests talking to each other, be it photographing birds on sticks, models, sport or even gadget types who share the same camera brand and lusting after the latest camera/lens. As for competitions, I have found that appraisal and judging of my images by my peers has improved my photography much quicker than any other method I could think of, and it also provides a bit of a boost of motivation.

Now a lot of the things I do with my images lead to letters after my name, of which I have four sets now, and I won't bother listing or explaining them. Now the thing about letters after your name is using them in the right circumstances. I shall shortly be approaching various places to ask whether I can come and shoot nudes there, when I write to them I shall use all my letters and point them to a new website I am creating with all my best images and listing all the lovely awards I have won, so hopefully they will think I must be famous and let me shoot there :)

So the latest distinction I went for last Sunday was an MPAGB (Master Photographic Alliance of Great Britain), which is the highest distinction you can achieve in UK camera club circles. The guidance says that they are looking for a panel of images meeting the criteria "Highest Standard Of UK Amateur Photography".

A panel of 20 images is marked by 6 experienced photographers,  they do not know who the author is as your images are mixed up with other applicants, and they give each image a mark of between 2 and 5. You need to score a total of 450 which is an average of 22.5 per image. Images should be marked as 4's when they are likely to get consistent acceptances in exhibitions, and 5's when they are likely to get regular awards. 

All of the images I entered had consistent acceptances in exhibitions, and had won one and usually far more than one awards, and if you read this blog you've seen them all before so can scroll to the bottom for the result!

Reflection In Red - 22

Pool of Light - 21

Jump - 26

The Sofa - 24

The Lookout - 17

The Skylight - 22

Pillars - 21

Branches - 19

Alone In The Woods - 22

Blue Angel - 22

Morning Light - 25

The Oasis - 18

Voyeur - 22

Secret Lagoon - 19

En Pointe - 21

So it's 5 prints to go, and I'm down 16.5 marks from what is required, which is quite a large margin at this stage. En Pointe had only scored 21 and is my most successful ever image (19 acceptances from 20 FIAP exhibitions, with 14 awards from 6 different countries, including 9 gold medals with the latest been last week from Trierenberg). I think it's fair to say that I wasn't exactly where I had hoped to be and was beginning to wonder what on earth I had to do to get the high scores that represent images likely to regularly get awards.

Given all that I am not nervous but resigned to whatever will happen. Two fellow photographers who were there, Stuart Crump and Elizabeth Brown, very kindly were doing all the worrying for me either side of me (thank you both), but I had omitted to tell them that I had left what I thought were my best 5 images until last.

The Piano - 27

Camelia - 23

Milky Way - 25

Pearls - 27

Simply Red - 25

Now those of you with good mental arithmetic will see that those marks all add up to 448 and the required total is 450. Now as this is just 2 marks short it is classed as a "near miss" and a review process is undertaken, in their words "this is to recognise that the system of scoring can lead to excessive swings in scores.". So you can stop holding your breath, after a short review,  I passed :)

I was not really confident beforehand as most of the exhibitions I enter are abroad, and the judging was against a UK exhibition standard. Most art-nude photographers I know who enter exhibitions will not enter UK exhibitions because nudes generally do very poorly here. I nearly left En Pointe out, but as it is my most successful image with 9 golds and a near 100% acceptance rate I thought it would be a cop out not to enter it. So while I am extremely happy with the final result, and think the judges did a very good job of marking, I was disappointed that this image got one of my lowest marks, but judging is a thankless task so as always you have to accept their verdict and just mutter under your breath ;-)

A big thank you to the organisers and the judges, there's quite a lot of effort involved in running these days, and of course a big thank you to the models in order of appearance, Holly (Ivory Flame), Fredau, Raphaella, Joceline, Kayleigh Lush, Madame Bink, Victoria Summers, Nanette McCrone and Katy Cee.

I would highly recommend these distinctions to any camera club members. I achieved my CPAGB in November 2010, my DPAGB in November 2011 and now my MPAGB in April 2013, it's been a thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding journey.

The title of the blog post? Well when I saw one of the more experienced and talented members of our club on Monday evening that's what they said "The Only Way Is Down", which was meant and taken as a compliment!

P.S. On the medal front as well as hearing about the gold for En Pointe from Trierenberg, I also received a gold medal from The Scottish Salon for The Sofa which was the fourth image in my panel. So quite an exciting week all in!