Tim's Pile of Photos

IncrediBink - Part 1

2012-02-12T19:54:00.003Z

There are some models who you never tire of working with as you are guaranteed of getting great shots, and one of them is definitely the incredible Madame Bink (INCREDIble BINK - get it!!!).

She has a superb look for art-nude, wonderful skin tone, amazing hair, and 'the perfect' hour glass figure, as shown in Exhibit A.

Exhibit A: Bink - 'the perfect' hourglass figure

Now I owe Bink an apology as although I shot with her quite regularly, each time has coincided with various events meaning I have never really got around to working on our images. The last time was in July 2011 which coincided with the rush for my ARPS, DPAGB, EFIAP, other random combination of meaningless letters etc. However this was partially remedied recently when I turned around some images quite quickly after she selected them, and she kindly put them on her blog. We'll gloss over the fact that they were from last July :D

Now I do have so many shoots where I have not really worked on the images - evidence available from most models I have worked with on request ;-) - that I could really stop shooting for a year or so and catch up. (Emoticon required for yeah that's really going to happen).

So where to start with Bink, at the beginning I suppose in April 2010 when I was fortunate to work with her for the first time in Dave Hunt's studio.

Let's start with Bink's amazing hair. Now I am sure that all photographer's ask Bink to do a 'hair flick' the first time they work with her. So as I was a relative newbie here's my effort. I'm sure it can't be good for her neck so I didn't ask her to do too many!

Bink 'hair flick' - check

Then I was sure that nobody had ever asked her hair to hang down in front of her :)

Bink - hair hanging down - check.

Now I'm not quite sure why I took this next shot. I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt and say it's the hair again :-s

Hair again?

And again ;-)

Now looking back at my first attempt so long ago I'm quite pleased with the pictures, and I'll be using some in competitions when I've done a bit more work on some of them (I do tend to muck about a bit with them for blogs, and pull it back a bit for competition images). I think we can safely put down the fact that they are decent images to the excellent model, and it does show that using a good model is a big part of getting great images.

So thank you Bink for all our great shoots, and I look forward to adding to our backlog in two weeks time :D

Welsh Gold

2012-01-21T20:50:00.001Z

Welsh Gold - I'm not talking about the metal that is mined in north Wales and is usually used in royal wedding rings, but something from the same region and that is far, far better.

I have visited Scotland a few times and got some superb images because of the wonderful scenery and superb models located there. Unfortunately because of it's distance from Birmingham I can only really do it once or twice a year, and I tend to have stay up there for a whole week. So last year I thought about taking photographs in Wales as it has similarly beautiful scenery, is much closer and is suitable for visiting for just a couple of days.

To cut down on travelling for the models I thought I would search for a Welsh model. Because I knew the area from visits to do landscape photography I looked around for models in north Wales and instantly struck gold with Cassandra Freeman. Stunningly beautiful, perfect art-nude figure, and located in some the of the most beautiful scenery in Britain.

I have shot with Cass twice now, and can't wait for the weather to get warmer so I can pay some more visits to north Wales. On the first trip Kestrel another well-known and superb photographer put me up and showed me some of his locations, and then on my second visit in November another great photographer Nick helped me sort out a studio and let me use his lights and props. I am so grateful to both of them as it made my shoots so much easier than if I had to arrange everything myself.

So some from our first shoot in June. I got to Kestrel's house and Cass was staying the night so we could have an early start, the evening light in a nearby field was superb so we went out to get a few shots.

The next day we visited some locations, including a wood next to a stream. Here's a few headshots taken while we were waiting for the sun to go behind a cloud .

And this is why we were waiting for the sun to go behind the cloud:

And some shots from an old cottage trying out a new wide angle lens, and mucked about a bit and converted to mono.

Our next shoot together was when I visited Wales for my DPAGB assessment, so I took the opportunity to work with Cass in a studio as it was a wee bit cold for outdoors. We worked all of the time apart from the last 15 minutes with natural light, and the studio had an amazing stained glass window so we made very good use of it. There are loads more images, these are just a very quick selection from them.

And finally no model escapes working with the now infamous big white TuTu.

I really need to sit down and look through all of the images from both shoots, as although these shots are great they are literally a very small and quick selection of them as Cass is such a super model and you get loads of great images.

So thanks to Kestrel, Nick and especially Cass, who I can't wait to work with again in the beautiful scenery of Wales when it's a bit warmer.

In praise of....Kayleigh Lush

2012-01-02T11:55:00.000Z

You can tell how long my backlog of images is when I say that all of my award winning images are over a year old. So as I work through my backlog you will start seeing a lot of different models appear, and hopefully some different styles of images. I am also going to try to improve and broaden my post-processing, so there may be some slightly different images posted now and again.

I shot with a model recently, and she was so enthusiastic during the shoot and afterwards that I just had to work on the images we produced, the model was the extraordinary Kayleigh Lush, and she's very kindly put some of our images on her Purestorm profile. She has been modelling for 3 years, but I only found out about her when she put one of my images on one of her ModelMayhem lists. I am extremely grateful that she went to the trouble to find me, a photographer with similar creative interests, and subtly made me aware of her. My only gripe was why did she take so long :)

Anyway she is tall, slim, has a super figure for art-nude, and if that wasn't enough she is a dancer so can produce some amazing poses, but you could probably have worked all of that out by looking at some of our images:

I should mention that the outfit in the first image was made by Kayleigh from pieces of material she had, and she only finished sewing it the evening before. We produced many other great images with it, and with hindsight I wish we had spent more of the session shooting with it. Still there's always next time, and I have no doubt we will be working together again in 2012. I have also seen some superb outdoor shots of Kayleigh by other photographers, and I can't wait for the weather to improve so we can work outdoors as well.

Just looking through the images I have posted I noticed something strange, I've started using clothes ;)

I am more well known for my nude images, maybe this is the start of something new?

Thanks to Rob Southall for letting us use his studio, which is one of the few with the height needed for a tall dancer, and a huge thank you to Kayleigh for coming all the way up to Birmingham and working with me. Till the next time :D

Balls!!...It's Holly & Raphaella

2011-12-15T12:51:00.001Z

A number of people have expressed interest in purchasing one of my calendars of Raphaella or Holly, which I have produced for friends and colleagues. So after discussing it with the models concerned I have made it available online.

The calendars are A3 in size, cost £9.99 each of which £4.99 will be donated to the testicular cancer charity CheckEmLads (Hence the headline to catch your attention!). And if you buy 2 calendars - maybe one of each - then you get free postage.

You can purchase the one of Raphaella here, and the one of Holly here.

Here are the covers:

And thumbnails of each page:

So as always a big thank you to Holly and Raphaella, and as the phrase goes "Check Em Lads"!!

Ooops...models are delicate

2011-12-11T17:26:00.005Z

A model's safety and security is always paramount in my mind, especially when working outdoors. So I generally try to do myself anything I ask a model to do, this is especially important when you have a model such as the astounding Raphaella who before you know it is climbing up and over anything and everything. So before asking her to climb up on anything I will go first, as I weigh rather more than she does, but I do have the advantage of shoes and clothes, whereas she is usually wearing neither, so I take that into account.

So from one of this year's calendars we have Raphaella on a Cruck House at one of the locations I use. I handily had some stepladders with me - what you mean all photographers don't take stepladders on every shoot :) So I went up first and jumped up and down, and it was extremely sturdy, so we produced this super image.

The rest of the images from this post were from another shoot at the same location. However on this occasion after taking this shot of Raphaella making a beautiful shape with the reeds she then proceeded to sit down in them. Although she didn't feel anything at the time when she got up she had tiny red marks all over her body where they had dug into her. Unfortunately this was a case of where my trying it first would not have stopped this happening.

So for the rest of these images I had to spend quite a bit of time using the healing and cloning tools to remove the marks, but I think you will agree that it was worth it.
Fortunately by the next day and after a bath Raphaella said that the marks had gone, but I will be a bit more careful next time when a model tries to dive into reeds/grasses/bushes etc naked.

You will notice that in a departure for me that Raphaella is partially clothed in some of these shots (clue: the headdress). These were brought along by the amazingly talented photographer Rebecca Parker and were made by either her, her mother or her aunt (I will update this post when she tells me who!!)[UPDATE:Headdress by Recbecca, her relatives have made pieces in other images], and I was shooting alongside one of my great shooting buddies Rob Southall who very kindly lets me use his studio (which is where the Piano shot from the last post was done).

So a huge thank you to Raphaella, Rebecca, Rob and any of Rebecca's relatives who made anything for this shoot :)

Team McCrone-Pile does it again :)

2011-12-04T21:08:00.002Z

This time last year I won my first ever medal in an external exhibition winning the members medal in the Smethwick International exhibition colour print section, with a picture called Pearls of the beautiful and brilliant model Nanette McCrone. Since then I have won numerous awards and medals, including a number with the same image of Nanette.

The members medal is difficult to win as you have to beat quite a few excellent photographers, so I had no expectations whatsoever of winning anything this year, but Nanette came up trumps again and I won the members medal in the colour print section again with our image called The Piano.

SPS Members Medal Winner - Colour Print - 2011 Smethwick International - "The Piano"

So there are three things to come out of this:

First, if you are a photographer and you have never shot Nanette then you don't know what you are missing, she is one of the most creative art-nude models I have ever worked with, so book her.

Second, for various reasons I did not get to shoot with Nanette as much as I should have done last year, even though she is the closest model to me, I will not be making the same mistake next year.

Finally, I do not believe in luck, but you can be pretty certain that an image created by Team McCrone-Pile will be entered in next year's Smethwick International.

Thanks Nanette, I can honestly say I would not be the photographer I am now without you. Until our next shoot...

The DPAGB Rollercoaster

2011-11-28T21:40:00.001Z

If you're not a camera club type then please just scroll down to the images. This weekend I went to Wales with a box of prints for a distinction assessment in Lllanberis. Last month I applied for my ARPS distinction with the Royal Photographic Society and wrote about that in a post, so this month it was my DPAGB assessment with the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain, which is the national body for all of the camera clubs in the UK.

There were 15 images required for both distinctions, but thats where the similarity ends. For the ARPS they were looking for 15 images in a cohesive, balanced panel that showed creativity and a distinctive style of the author, and these images are generally artistic in nature. They are judged as a whole with the judges spending as long as they wish looking at the images, and looking at them from a normal viewing distance as well as from very close up.

For the DPAGB they are looking for images that are likely to be regularly accepted in national photographic exhibitions. The images are seen one at a time, mixed in the images from other authors applying for the distinction, and images with impact generally do well as the judges look at each image for a relatively small amount of time. Thee are 6 judges marking from between 2 and 5, giving a total of between 12 and 30 for all of the judges marks added together. A 4 is given if the image is likely to be regularly accepted into exhibitions, 2 unlikely to be regularly accepted, 3 a near miss and 5 for outstanding images likely to be accepted for the highest level of distinction the MPAGB. You need an average of 20 marks from each image, or a total of 300 to be awarded the distinction.

So needing 20 from each image things started well with a 22, but then went decidedly shaky with a 16, a 20 and 21 leaving me 1 behind where I needed to be. Unfortunately things then headed south again with a 19, 18 and 19, so that at around half-way I was now 5 points behind where I needed to be. So here are the first-half images with their scores:

Path To The Mill - 22

Blue Angel - 16

Branches - 20

Golden Angel - 21

Morning Light - 19

Cwm Orthin Impressions - 18

The Acrobat - 19

It's safe to say that I was not feeling hugely optimistic at this point, as I had not put the images in any particular order and I thought the second half images were of similar quality to the first half. So here's the rest of the images and their scores:

Reflection In Red - 23

Simply Red - 28

Through The Doorway - 18

Pearls - 28

Alone In The Woods - 24

Pool Of Light - 25

The Skylight - 23

The Piano - 23

Well talk about a turnaround, with the last eight images I went from a miserable 5 behind to an amazingly comfortable 27 points ahead, and I was awarded my DPAGB distinction. The two 28 point marks were also only beaten by one other author's image which received 29. Phew is all I can say!!

As usual I would like to thank the real stars of the show in order of appearance - Holly, Joceline, Raphaella, Nanette and Fredau. Oh and the windmill and slate mine barracks as well :)

My thanks also go the judges, they are heroes to those that pass and rather less well thought of by those who do not pass. By having 6 judges they balance out the marks so that one judges personal opinions do not carry that much sway, and on balance I think they did a good job of marking both my and the other authors images - and that's not just because I did so well :)

It really was a bit of a roller-coaster, now I know why I went for a shoot instead of attending my ARPS adjudication.

Ah, I get it now...

2011-11-11T21:37:00.000Z

Although I enjoy writing this blog - and I hope somebody enjoys reading it, and people don't just get here by accident - I have never yet got my act together like other bloggers and written posts ahead of time, ready to post at regular intervals.

However, I think I've just realised why. It seems that other people will get a lot of images ready and then drip a few out in a post at a time. Whereas I will prepare lots of images, and post them all at once, leaving me with no images to post the following week. As an example my calendar last year contained 13 images, yet I put them all out in one single post. The same with my ARPS blog post, 15 images all in one go. So in future I will be a little smarter, starting with the pictures from my 2 calendars this year.

I like producing a calendar, as people who would not normally put a picture of a nude up in their house instead put up 13 different ones :) Last year's calendar produced some interesting stories from people who had a copy, when friends or relatives saw it on their wall, and that's what I really like getting my images in front on 'normal' people and not just other photographers or models.

One calendar is exclusively of Holly, and the other of Raphaella. I could have made 10 more calendars with all the wonderful images I have of other models, but I thought I would try some single model calenders this year.

Now this image of Holly is from an abandoned cottage and I followed a tutorial for an 'ultra-realistic' effect from a photo magazine.

And another of Holly just looking beautiful in natural surroundings. Although I suspect Holly would look beautiful even if I took a picture of her at a rubbish dump or scrapyard - now there's an idea ;)

The first one of Raphaella is from the cover of the calendar, and was chosen as it had space for all of the words - as well as being a nice picture.

The final image is of Raphaella doing what she does best, making beautiful shapes that just perfectly fit in with the surroundings she is in. I would swear that she is a chameleon.

Well that's 4 images, which is more than enough for a post, and I've obviously got loads in reserve so I can make my posts a little more regular over the next few months. And thank you to both models for giving me the opportunity to produce such wonderful images with them.

Blame Ciaran ;)

2011-11-06T10:14:00.003Z

The amazing Ciaran Whyte has a lot to answer for. I generally keep myself to myself, but in a blog post in May this year Ciaran mentioned the blogs he followed, and I was one of them. His final remark about me "Unfortunately his blog is only updated every now and again, but is still most certainly worth a visit." spurred me on to update more regularly since then, which I have done.

Well I have done, apart from last month and that was also partly because of Mr Whyte :) It was a busy month with my ARPS assessment, but also I popped over to visit him and his lovely wife and truly amazing photographer Lorraine, and you can read about it on his post.

While I probably didn't get any useful images from the weekend it was good to see how another photographer who I really admire goes about things, especially someone who moves in the same circles as myself and whose work is 'similar but different' to mine.

On the first day with Ciaran I learnt quite a bit about lighting, especially mixing natural lighting with flash which I have never done but will certainly be trying in the future. He also showed me things I really need to spend money on - really lots of money :)

The second day was extremely useful and covered his workflow and post-processing. I picked up quite a few tips on his workflow, and will be tweaking mine in the future. I feel post-processing is my weakest area so it was great to see how Ciaran works, and I definitely feel that my images will improve quite a bit in the future both in final image quality and speed in getting them out (cue sigh of relief from various models!!!)

First I have to say that while Ciaran may go out of his way to be 'provocative' on some model/photographer forums, in real life he is really the most friendly and helpful guy you could meet. Not only is he willing to show you absolutely everything about how he produces his pictures, he automates a lot of his work with Photoshop Actions and makes them freely available.

I use the 'content aware' facility in Photoshop quite a bit to tidy up small areas of an image, but it's actually a lot clever than you think and he uses it on larger areas and in ways I would not think of. As an example here is an image I am just working on for Holly from January 2011, first we have the straight image out of camera RAW.

I thought that removing the log-burning stove was going to be a pain, but by literally selecting and clicking delete with content-aware selected, hey presto.

Now I may zoom in and remove any repeating patterns, but it looks pretty good to me.

So a huge thank you to Ciaran and Lorraine, and you can blame Ciaran for a lot of the improvements in my photography. It was great meeting all the other photographers over the weekend, and I had a most enjoyable time as well as picking up loads of great ideas and tips. Now to start making a dent on that backlog of images :D

Tim Pile ARPS

2011-10-14T16:54:00.005+01:00

While I don't necessarily take pictures with a specific purpose in mind, it is good to have some direction for your work as I find it helps me improve, and in that respect I enter exhibitions and also try for various photographic distinctions that are available.

Many of my posts refer to the FIAP distinctions, that are recognised worldwide, and FIAP exhibitions generally require a certain style of image to get accepted as you are competing against photographers from many countries around the World. Then there are PAGB exhibitions which are UK based, and so require a subtlety different type of image to do well.

One other type of distinction is through the Royal Photographic Society, which to quote themselves "..was founded in 1853 'to promote the Art and Science of Photography'". Unlike the other two institutions, for the RPS distinction I chose you need a panel of fifteen images that look good in their entirety rather than individually, and generally more artistic images do well rather than images with immediate impact.

I chose to apply for the Associateship distinction, and really the only person I was competing against was myself, with the panel of images assessed by a group of Fellows of the society. According to the blurb "you need to demonstrate a high standard of technical competence as well as provide evidence of creative ability and the development of personal style".

So on October 12th I drove down to Bath where the headquarters for the society are to deliver my panel of images. I chose not to stay and watch the assessment, instead opting to take some photographs nearby which will appear in a future blog post, and got an email the following day saying that my panel had been successful :)

Here is the layout of the panel as it was judged:

All panels have to have a statement of intent, and mine was as follows:

"These images reflect my interpretation of the female nude.
I have explored the subject through dynamic and expressive poses using a variety of viewpoints and locations."

And I have also uploaded a gallery of the individual images.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the models concerned who have worked with me as my skills have developed, and who are as much the creators of this panel as myself. They have put up with various combinations of cold, damp, dust and me dangling a camera above their heads :D

In true Hollywood-style order of appearance my thanks go to eRosanne, Holly, Raphaella, Nanette, Joceline, Iveta, Madame Bink, Emily, Tiffany Jayne, Victoria and Fredau.

Five Cheers For Holly

2011-09-17T16:40:00.003+01:00

Now I should imagine that everyone who has ever read this blog knows that I have shot with Holly quite a few times, and has seen quite a few images of her on this blog. In fact some people may think there are so many images of her that they begin to wonder whether they have strayed onto her blog by accident :)

Well I make no apologies for the number of images of her, because I only post images that are successful or that are good and that I like, and with Holly most images of her fall into one or more often both of those categories. So I thought it worth doing a post explaining the prevalence of pictures of her

In the last 10 days I have received 5 awards from international exhibitions for images that I created with her. This is no mean feat, as this time last year my target for this year was to gain my first award from such exhibitions, just one and I would have been happy - so far this year the number of awards from images created with Holly are well into double figures.

Note that I said 'created with her' rather than 'took by me', as Holly is the type of model who doesn't just stand there posing - although she will if that is what you ask - but she will make suggestions, come up with ideas, help my idea-making process, she will basically do her level best to make sure we get good images. She is just such a flexible model - physically and creatively :)

So here are the latest award winners:


Arched Silver Medal - Lescovak 2011


Reflection In Red Bronze Medal - Malta 2011 Ribbon - Lescovak 2011

Simply Red
Bronze Medal - Malta 2011

Sunflower
Ribbon - Premfoto 2011

Now I'm not trying to put Holly onto a pedestal as there are many other great models out there, and maybe I have just been lucky with the phenomenal success I have had with images created with her. She is after all just a down to earth, well-balanced, very nice person, who just happens to produce magic in front of my camera.

So if you're a photographer and you haven't worked with Holly I suggest you book her as soon as you can. Thanks Holly and I look forward to our next shoot.

Miscalculation

2011-09-09T19:13:00.001+01:00

It's geek time again, so for those of you who just want to look at the pictures stop reading now.

I need just over 30 acceptances with at least 7 new images to apply for my next level of FIAP distinction. Thinking I might get around 3 acceptances per exhibition I entered 10 exhibitions.

However I now have the results back from the first 3 exhibitions and I have 26 acceptances with 2 awards including 11 new images, so it appears that I got my sums slightly wrong, in a very nice way.

Here are all the new acceptances, in no particular order, some of which you will recognise from recent blog posts.

The first is Fredau.

Pool of Light

Then Emily.

Golden Chamber

Two of Raphaella.

The Acrobat

The Skylight

Now the next seven all feature Holly including the two award winners, while the fourth one also included Madame Bink.

Sunflower

I usually only get to enter the colour and monochrome sections, as I don't shoot nature or photo travel which are other sections that are common. However in one exhibition there was a section called Forest/Woodland, so I entered 4 nudes in a woodland environment and all 4 got accepted including these next two. So I am very pleased that the judges were open-minded in their interpretation of the subject matter :)

Woodland Maiden

Woodland Princess

Duo

Arched - awarded Silver Medal

Reflection

Reflection In Red - awarded Ribbon

A big thank you to all the models, who have created so many great images with me, allowing me to gain all these acceptances and awards.

Randomer and randomer

2011-09-04T10:19:00.000+01:00

Presuming that most people come here to look at my images, rather than read the text (I'm not sure 'randomer' is even a real word!), here are some pretty random images I have done a little work on recently.

To give some semblance of structure they are in order of when they were taken, so you can work out whether I am getting better or worse at this :)

Starting with one of my first location shoots, with Holly.

Next we have a Duo of Holly and Madame Bink.

I'm not sure whether this works better in colour or mono, so I'll let you decide. This is Fredau.

And finally Kayleigh Lush, who as you may guess is a dancer.

The images of Fredau and Kayleigh were straight out of Lightroom with no fidddling around in Photoshop, which shows the power of Lightroom.

I've saved all the superlatives for last, as otherwise the text would have been full of 'beautiful', 'talented' and 'amazing', which all of the above models are. What it does show is that art-nude models come in all shapes and sizes (Kayleigh and Fredau are quite tall, Holly and Bink less so!), but by working with models that predominantly work at art-nude you are going to get much better pictures, and a higher proportion of good images.

So a big thank you to the models, and maybe the next post will have a bit more structure, or maybe nobody cares, ciao.

Through the squarish window

2011-08-26T13:49:00.000+01:00

I'm still busy working on images for various things, but thought I should post a couple of images.

For anyone who has ever read this blog before the models concerned need no introduction. The first one is of the beautiful and talented Raphaella, desaturated a bit to give that dreamy feeling. I love the shadows of the trees on the wood which is why I have left quite a bit of space around the window. This image has been accepted in a couple of exhibitions, but I may do some more tidying up on it at some stage.

Another window shot, this time of the equally beautiful and talented Holly. (Note the 'equally', I'm sensible enough to know that both models could come across this post, and also it's true.)

I love the way that Holly's hair is 'fluffed up'.This image needs a bit more working doing on it before going into a competition, toning down the light area at the top left of the image, and I'll probably clone a row or brick at the top to make it more balanced and even, but as it matches the first image I thought I would put it up.

Many thanks to Raphaella and Holly for filling the windows so delightfully, and to the kind people who let me use their properties to shoot in. Any other suggestions or offers of locations most welcome.

That would be Holly

2011-08-19T17:57:00.002+01:00

I'm currently in preparation mode, getting lots of images and prints ready for competitions and forthcoming distinctions assessments, so I thought I better show a few of the new images I am entering into competitions.

Her are two of the ever talented and beautiful Holly. It used to be the case that very few of my competition images were of Holly, but as I now work through my large backlog quite a high proportion of them are of her.

Sunflower

Reflection In Red

So a big thank you to Holly for creating the images with me, see - I told you I would work through the backlog eventually. Now I've just got to hope no other models read this as I should really work on some of the images I created with them sometime in the dim and distant past and which have yet to see the light of day :)

5 airports in 24 hours - new & old friends

2011-08-12T22:06:00.004+01:00

While some models seem to be forever travelling. I had a taste of this lifestyle recently when picking up my medal at the opening of the London Salon, which surprisingly enough was in London. Unfortunately the opening coincided with the first day of my holiday in Ireland, and given that this was my first (and possibly only!!!) medal in the Salon I thought it was worth making an effort to try to attend.

So on the evening of Friday 29th July I flew from Birmingham Airport(1) to Belfast City(2) with my wife and some friends to start our holiday. After picking up the hire car we drove straight to Belfast International Airport(3) where I checked into a hotel, and the rest of the party then continued with the holiday. Then an early start to fly to Gatwick Airport(4) with the Gatwick Express getting me into central London. I then nearly missed the opening of the Salon exhibition as I decided to walk from Victoria to Mayfair but unfortunately the area around Buckingham Palace was literally gridlocked due to this being the first day the public could see the wedding dress of somebody called Kate :)

As well as meeting members of the London Salon, I was able to meet some of the other medal winners, whose images I regularly see in exhibitions but who I rarely get to meet in person. So here are some of the other medal winning images of photographers I met at the presentation, which the authors have kindly given me permission to show.

First we have Little Ballerina from Michelle McNally of Newry in Northern Ireland. Michelle is a member of Dundalk Camera Club, which is a well known and very successful club. Michelle said that she is new to entering exhibitions, but I have a feeling that I will be seeing her name appear a lot more in the list of awards at future exhibitions. Michelle is fortunate enough to have lovely children to take pictures of, as we can see with this image.

Next we have an image from Matthew Felton all the way from Seattle, in Washington state. Matthew fitted in a trip to pick up his medal with a visit to the UK for some family celebrations. His Image Jawarren and Zaya is a lovely portrait of a father and his child. Jawarren was an american football player, and then a member of 4x400 mens relay team for the USA in 2000. I'm not usually a fan of tattoos but I think they work very well here.

The final image is from Gerry Coles of Northampton, with his image Summer Breeze. I've met Gerry quite a few times now, usually at exhibitions where we've both won awards. Gerry's images have a very painterly and dreamy effect to them which I love - and which one day I will prise out of him how to reproduce it ;)

So after picking up my medal, less than 3 hours after arriving it was time to go back via the Heathrow Express and the 5th and final airport, Heathrow(5). I was then picked up from Belfast International by a friend who very kindly drove me to Donegal where my wife and friends has started the holiday, I arrived just after midnight. One thought I had was that models do this sort of travelling all the time - maybe not quite as extreme -and they do it week in and week out, I don't know how they manage it and still be so cheery and fresh during our shoots.

So in the end I had 14 hours of travel for 3 hours at the Salon, was it worth it? Definitely, as I got to pick up the medal in person, and got the chance to meet so many great photographers especially Michelle, Matthew and Gerry, to whom I must give my thanks for making my short time at the Salon exhibition so enjoyable and allowing me to display their well deserved medal-winning images.

For Sale - Trampoline

2011-07-19T20:28:00.004+01:00

I recently went to a lecture by a Birmingham-based professional photographer where he showed some images of models jumping above the Birmingham skyline. I was quite interested in these and so emailed the photographer the following day asking how he had achieved the images. He said that he had simply used a trampoline, and then obviously cropped the image just above the trampoline.

So the following day at work I asked my colleagues at work if anyone had used a trampoline, and amazingly quite a few of them had, as small trampolines or 'trampettes' as they are called are used for fitness or are recommended for those recovering from leg injuries. One colleague said that she had a 'trampette' in her garage somewhere that she would like to get rid of and had hardly used, so a few days later I became the proud owner of a trampette.

Now I had two shoots coming up with dancers, so I looked forward to using my new found prop to produce some great images. So here's an image from the first shoot, and if you have to ask who the model is you seriously do need to read some more of my blog entries:

It is of course the beautiful, bouncy Raphaella. She reminds me of 'Tigger', as even when you are changing lenses or memory cards she is still jumping around and posing.

Next we have a model I have not shot before, but who I will definitely be shooting again, the lovely Kayleigh Lush. She is an amazingly flexible art-nude model, which would be enough to make me want to shoot with her again, and then to top that she is a dancer. So this is one of the shots we achieved:

Now the keen-eyed amongst you will see that there is no trampoline in sight. Now my cloning expertise is pretty good, but cloning out a whole trampoline - sorry trampette - is possibly beyond my expertise, and is definitely beyond my patience. No trampette was used in either shot, basically I found that dancers have rubber, springy legs, and have no need for artifical 'launch aids'. So while my trampette was a relatively cheap prop, it languishes unused in my metaphorical 'prop bag'. So any offers gratefully accepted :)

And to finish all it needs is for me to thank the two gravity-defying models.

What's the point?

2011-07-09T10:33:00.004+01:00

Twice yesterday I was told off by friends about my blog, first by a follower at work who said it was too 'nerdy', by which I think he meant all the stuff about competitions and distinctions, and also by a fellow photographer who said I should post a lot more pictures. She is right as my images are really like an iceberg, 90% of them sit on my disk unseen, while my blog, website, Flickr etc show only around images from 10% of the shoots I have done. So this post is the first step to remedying this.

When people look at photographs they apparently notice contrasts. This can be contrast of colour, tone (dark vs light), sharpness (vs blurred), size (large vs small), saturation or all manner of other contrasts which make objects stand out, and which help lead the viewer's eye around the image.

So for example in a landscape the photographer must emphasise in some way the part of the image they initially want the viewer to look at, and then using other visual cues lead the viewer's eyes around the image via the route they choose. Now for the viewer this all happens in an instant when they look at the image, for the photographer this can take hours of painstaking work in Photoshop carefully adjusting parts of the image.

Now a good trick often used by photographers is to include a person in the image, because the human brain puts a lot of its processing power into recognising other humans so the eye will instantly go to the person. Then I usually make sure the subject is nude, as this attracts the eye even more towards the subject as their shape is more well defined, and their body will be all of a similar tone unlike with a clothed subject.

So onto the first example:

Unless you are obsessively attracted to the colour green or have a fetish about leaves then I'm pretty certain that the first place your eye will go to is the incredibly beautiful Holly. There are lots of reasons she stands out, she's a fellow human being, she is nude, she is brighter than the background, as well as being a warmer colour (red vs green) which tends to make her come out of the image. She is also sharper than the background due to me using the largest aperture of my lens.

So overall I think you can see by selecting the location, composition and model I have created quite a large number of contrasts, which really makes her stand out. But herein lies the problem, as a lot of photographers do not go to as much trouble as me, they use messy backgrounds, they use medium apertures so that the background is not out of focus, and apparently some of them even clothe their models :)

Now because this is a digital age, and because so many photographers are too lazy, are not competent, or just can't be bothered to follow some simple rules to produce contrast, when you do produce an image with great contrast people instantly think you must have faked it. As is the case with the following image of a great model called Bonnie Scot:

The instant reaction of camera club judges to this image is that there is no way the photographer could have had the good fortune to find such a super bench, with an amazing sky and background, and also happened to have a nude model with them at the time. So therefore it must be fake, and they look for tell tale clues to the author having photoshopped the sky and model into the image. There are none, as this is a perfectly straight image.

Judges are just not able to just appreciate an image for what it is, which is why I prefer producing images for 'normal' people who want to appreciate an image rather than dissect it.

I was very recently showing the final image to four people for consideration in using in a panel for a distinction I am applying for later in the year.

This time the model is the wonderful Raphaellla.

I am using some of the same visual cues to make the model stand out, framing her in the dull concrete arches, her warm tone skin colouring against the background, and I had been lucky in that some earlier rain lightened the floor in the background to make her stand out even more. Again I used my lens at full aperture to make the background unsharp compared to her body which is at the critical point of focus.

The four people - who are all camera club judges as well - said that I shouldn't use the image as she's too sharp so the judge would think I had copied her in from another image.

So the moral of this post is don't bother going to the trouble to take models to interesting locations, and setting up nice clean backgrounds, and using the capabilities of your lens to make the model really stand out in the image, instead be lazy and take a cluttered boring background anywhere really, shoot at F8 or F11 to get this background nice and sharp so that the model blends in to it and was definitely there, as nobody would go to the trouble to photoshop such an uninteresting, uninspiring image, so it must be real.

An alternative moral is to do your own thing, put real effort into getting the most interesting and inspiring locations you can get, and ignore your local camera club judges, as there are out there some other photographers who do make the effort to make great images themseleves and know that other photographers do the same and they are able to recognise your images as such.

I'll leave it up to you which moral I shall follow. Thanks as always to the superb models, without whom my images would look rather boring, and maybe even appeal to local camera club judges :)

An afternoon with Molloch

2011-07-06T19:48:00.000+01:00

On my recent trip to Scotland one of the models I shot, Chrissie Red, suggested I contact a model called Molloch about doing a shoot. Never one to miss an opportunity I contacted her and she agreed to do a shoot on the last day of my stay in Scotland.

I took Molloch to a location that I had scouted out before, where coincidentally I got my shot of chrissie on the spiral staircase before my shoot with her had been rained off last year. So I had all my ideas ready from my last visit.

We had a super time, the light was a bit contrasty and it was a bit windy, so we made the images reflect this. Here are a few of them, with a bit of treatment and a desaturated look in some of them.

So thanks Molloch, and I look forward to my next visit to Scotland.

Gold for Pearls

2011-06-24T18:52:00.001+01:00

There are around 1,000 camera clubs in the UK, with approximately 30,000 members. To bring some semblance or order to these clubs they are organised into 15 regional federations. The federations range in size with some representing single counties to large ones representing a whole country (ie Scotland or Northern Ireland). To pull all these federations together and also to represent UK amateur photography on the world stage there is the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB).

Each year the PAGB puts on an exhibition of the very best of amateur photography in Great Britain, this exhibition tours the country with an exhibition organised each month by a federation, to be exhibited in their region. To select the work for each exhibition they ask all the federations to put forward the best work from each of the clubs that make up the federation. The exhibition consists of around 150 prints, split between colour and monochrome based on the strengh of each section.

This year for the first time my club Smethwick Photographic Society put forward two of my images for consideration by our location federation the Midlands County Photographic Federation. I was then very pleased when the selectors put forward both pieces to the final selection for the exhibition, representing the federation. I was then rather overwhelmed when I got a phone call telling me that not only were both of my images selected for the final exhibition, but that I had been awarded the Gold Medal for the best colour print in the exhibition.

There will be 80 colour prints representing the whole of the UK, and 2 of them will be mine :) :) :) :)
I produce images to be appreciated by others, and I am really so pleased that so many people - especially non-photographers - will be able so see my images as prints all around the UK. People who have read my blog before will instantly recognise the two images Pearls and Simply Red, with Pearls being awarded the Gold Medal.

Pearls - Gold Medal best colour print
PAGB Exhibition 2011

Simply Red - accepted print
PAGB Exhibition 2011

The first exhibition is at the Gosport Gallery from the 1st to the 23rd July, then from the 29th July to the 29th August at Manchester Cathedral. Future venues are still to be announced. Coming soon to a gallery near you...

Well short and sweet, and all that's left for me to do is thank the two wonderful models without whom these prints would be rather boring blank sheets of paper, so a huge thank you to Nanette and Holly.

Tim Pile AFIAP

2011-06-18T10:30:00.000+01:00

As I have mentioned before one of the outlets for my images is international exhibitions run under the auspices of the Federation International de l'Art Photographique (FIAP). This body is recognised throughout the world and it gives patronage to exhibitions run to a certain standard. as well as awarding photographic distinctions which are similarly recognised worldwide, and mean you can use letters after your name if you so wish.

The first step on the ladder is the AFIAP, with the A standing for Artiste. The rules for gaining an AFIAP are a little complex requiring at least 30 acceptances into exhibitions with their patronage, these must include at least 10 different pieces of work, also the acceptances must be in at least 10 exhibitions in at least 5 different countries. I'm sure there is also a rule that at least 25% of the acceptances must be from exhibitions outside your home country, but haven't been able to find that written down anywhere.

As my fellow FIAP distinctions traveller Ciaran Whyte mentions in his blog post there is all a bit of smoke and mirrors about the awarding of the various distinctions, and even if you satisfy all of the written criteria that's no guarantee it will be awarded. You have to send a portfolio of between 5 and 10 printed images of your most successful images which they use for promoting FIAP and the distinctions, apparently if they don't like the quality of one of the images they can reject it. They have to accept at least 5 of them, so it's a brave person who just send 5. In the end I sent 10, so they would have to think 6 of them were rubbish before rejecting the portfolio :)

Well the reason for writing the post is because I now have confirmation of my AFIAP as well as having my grubby hands on the very stylish certificate.

I have my AFIAP at this time by a stroke of luck. You have to have been entering FIAP exhibitions for 2 years before you can apply. Most people start off entering local exhibitions, then national exhibitions, and finally when they feel their work is good enough they enter international exhibitions.

I missed out local and national, and the first ever exhibition I entered was an international exhibition in January 2009, I entered 12 images, and I scraped the acceptance mark with one digital image, a portrait of a man in Gas Street Basin in Birmingham. So very fortunately for me this started the clock ticking, as I did not enter another FIAP accredited exhibition for another year.

This is the original image, but I would process it much better now, as I would do with many of the other accepted images.

Gas Street Man - Smethwick, England 2008/116

So here are the rest of the images that made up my AFIAP application, along with the first exhibition they were accepted in. I do almost cringe at some of my early work, but an acceptance is an acceptance and that was the level of my work at the time, and you can see where I have come from and the direction of my photography.

Lest We Forget
Smethwick, England 2009/130

Path To The Mill
Smethwick, England 2009/130

Pungent Patterns
Smethwick, England 2009/130

Through The Doorway
Smethwick, England 2009/130


Abandoned Exposed, Slovenia 2009/131

Beauty Revealed
Exposed, Slovenia 2009/131

Lady In Red
Exposed, Slovenia 2009/131

Shot At Dawn
Southampton, England 2010/002

Cwm Orthin Impressions
Bristol, England 2010/020

Jump
Bor, Serbia 2010/042

Modesty
Bor, Serbia 2010/042


Pull Bor, Serbia 2010/042

Dual Personality
Wervicq Sud, France 2010/057

Fantasy
Wervicq Sud, France 2010/057

Golden Angel
Wervicq Sud, France 2010/057

Perched
Fotogrupo 30/40, Argentina 2010/080

Window Light
Fotogrupo 30/40, Argentina 2010/080

Pearls
Mallorca, Spain 2010/091

Ring Of Beauty
Iles Balears, Spanin 2010/092

Contemplation
Swansea, Wales 2010/148

Rather strangely 'Contemplation' the latest acceptance in my AFIAP application was one of the first ever nudes I did, and I was digging through images to enter for Swansea and resurrected it.

My AFIAP application was rather haphazard - like much of my photography some of you may say :) - with a lucky early acceptance to start the clock ticking, and it was only part way through 2010 that I suddenly realised that if I entered a few more competitions I could apply for the AFIAP.

I am now working towards the next step up, which is an EFIAP (E for Excellence). This is a rather different beast, needing at least 150 acceptances in 30 salons or more, and requiring acceptances from at least 50 different images, which is quite a lot of images to have at international standard.

Fortunately I am planning it a bit more now, and am well on my way to satistfying the criteria for the application.

Luxembourg - Simply Gold. Yay Holly :)

2011-06-09T19:34:00.000+01:00

As my prints seem to do better than my digital images in exhibitions I decided to follow the example and advice of my fellow FIAP distinction traveller Ciaran Whyte and enter some print exhibitions. With another member of my camera club I carefully wrapped up all the prints in a package ready to send off to the Luxembourg Salon.

Return postage is often included in the entry fee, and this was the case with this exhibition. However there was a surcharge if the package weighed over 1Kg, while it didn't before it was all wrapped up, it weighed slightly over when it was all packaged up. Now the rules clearly state that your images will not be judged OR returned if you don't include sufficient postage, so I had to email the organisers and tell them I would send the postage surchage in a separate envelope as I was not going to unwrap the package. So not off to the best of starts.

However it all had a happy ending when earlier this week I was notified that I had 4 accepted images, including the PSA Gold Medal for the colour section, as well as a FIAP Ribbon in the same section.

The PSA Gold Medal was for Simply Red with the amazing Holly. This image has now won 4 medals in as many months and is by far my most successful image. I make no apologies for reproducing it again on my blog. I look at it many times a day as it is hung above the stairs in my house. It never really reproduces as well on screen as it does printed on the Torchon textured paper I use, where the tones are really so delicate.

The FIAP Ribbon which is still a super achievement was awarded to Jump with the equally amazing Raphaella.

The roll call of amazing models continues with Beauty Revealed with Iveta.

And finally a landscape Path To The Mill, but who knows I may shoot a nude there someday ;)

So a relatively short and sweet post. A big thank you to the three models concerned, and in the words of Holly - Yay :D

The making of "Pearls"

2011-06-05T21:59:00.001+01:00

One of my more successful images is "Pearls" created in collaboration with the superb model Nanette McCrone, and quite a number of people have asked me about what wonderful studio I shot it in, how many fancy lights did I use, and who did the models make up to get that lovely skin tone.

Well, it was taken in the lounge of the model's flat after an aborted outdoor sunrise nude shoot, I used a single Jessops 336VM light from a kit of 3 lights I bought off somebody at the camera club for £25 for the whole set. I am no expert in lighting so setup one light to her right, and hoped the other wall to her left would act as a reflector. Nanette was not really able to get far enough away from the wall for the shadow of her to be out of shot.

This was my first shoot with Nanette, but it very quickly became apparent what an absolutely superb model Nanette was. Between us we were coming up with lots of ideas, using various props that she and I had bought along, and she was coming up with some great poses.

Then during a 10 minute session with a string of pearls she had we producing this image, which would become pearls. Now a lot of studio workers would probably throw this image away (probably all the images from this session!!) due to the poor lighting, or because the composition was too messy.

I felt I had enough to work on, and with the use of the crop tool and some dodging and burning, and some hue/saturation adjustment layers in Photoshop to get the statue-like effect I was looking for in the final image - so no fancy makeup I'm afraid.

So the moral of this story is that you don't always need expensive studios and lighting to get a good image. You need a good model, maybe some props, a bit of creativity and our good friend Photoshop.

We produced a lot of images on that morning, all with one light in Nanette's lounge. So here's a selection of the sort of thing we got up to.

I wasn't to keen on the carpet being the base of the picture so Nanette had a lovely coffee table we used as a posing stool. Here's a pretty straight picture of Nanette doing one of her yoga poses on the table.

The single light worked quite well with 'bodyscape' type images, showing off Nanette's superb figure.

Some of the other props were just bits of material from charity shops and other sources, the blut tint was added in Lightroom to add that bit of wierdness, as that was what I thought was needed with the way Nanette used these particular props.

And finally the set wouldn't be complete with another picture of those lovely pearls which have produced that really succesful image.

Many thanks again to Nanette for creating all of these images, and in particular one of the most succesful images I have.

More Holly...belatedly

2011-05-28T20:03:00.004+01:00

After starting this blog last July and doing 6 entries that month, it has petered down to 1 or 2 a month. One of the blogs I follow is of the wonderful Irish photographer Ciaran Whyte who takes "similar but different" images to me, if you look at his great wesbite you'll see what I mean. After reading his latest blog entry he mentions my blog saying "Unfortunately his blog is only updated every now and again".

So Ciaran suitably ashamed this is an entry about one of both of our favourite models IvoryFlame.

The images are not new - they are from my 2nd ever shoot with Holly nearly 2 years ago - but they are newly processed and selected, after sitting forgotten and neglected on my computer for the last 2 years!!! I now feel that with Lightroom and my better post processing skills I can go back to some of my old shoots and make a much better job of them than I could have done at the time.

The pictures were taken in a tiny old cottage near Birmingham where we had to trample down brambles to get to it. The first image "Through The Doorway" is the only image I have finished and used in competitions, and while not winning any awards it has been extremely successful in gaining acceptances in exhibitions.

Another doorway shot, and some beautiful light on Holly.

Now a couple taken at the door we used to gain entrance to the cottage, with more lovely side-lighting.

This was an amazing room with good light coming from a window on the left, and the super colours of the bricks and plaster which went so well with Holly's skin tones and hair. I just love the beauty of Holly against the decay of the walls and window.

Also there was a staircase with super top-lighting from a small window. In these next two images it just catches Holly's hair perfectly

And finally a couple that have been messed around with a bit, the first one with some textures.

And the final one a "photo-realistic" image, whatever that means, courtesy of a tutorial from Digital Photo magazine, I will definitely look up the tutorial again and try it on some other images as I feel the effect is quite striking, and very suitable for potential exhibition entries. In this image I think it has made Holly's skin statue-like, or something like that which I can't quite think up the right description for.

I think quite a few of these may be winging their way to exhibitions in the near future, now that I have re-discovered them.

So not only is it a big thank you to Holly, but also to Ciaran for pointing out my lack of blog entries. I shall make a concerted effort to update my blog more regularly, and if I fall behind then feel free to give me a nudge to remind me.

London Salon Medal

2011-05-19T14:37:00.010+01:00

I enter quite a few exhibitions with my images, and also my club enters some of my images on their behalf into other competitions. There are usually either one or three or more judges. With one judge the exhibition results are obviously more of a personal opinion of the judge, while with more judges the result is an aggregate of their opinions.

Many exhibitions have self-selecting entrants, in that for the most part photographers do not enter unless they feel they at least have a chance of having some of their work accepted into the exhibition. So this year I felt that my work had sufficiently improved that I would enter the London Salon of Photography. Salon membership is by invitation only and currently has 42 members. The members of the salon who I know of produce some amazing inspirational work. Anybody can enter their annual exhibition and it is selected and judged by those salon members that turn up on the judging day, 4 images can be entered and a maximum of 2 will be exhibited from any one author.

The stated aim of the salon is "'..to exhibit only that class of photographic work in which there is distinct evidence of artistic feeling and execution", so I entered what I felt were some of my most artistic images. There were just under 20 salon members who judged this year, so the exhibition selected is a mix of all of their opinions. Out of well over a 1000 prints entered around 10% are selected for the exhibition, and up to 10 Salon Medal are awarded.

I was incredibly fortunate to have 2 of my images selected for the exhibition, including being awarded a Salon Medal for 'Pearls'. The exhibition will be displayed at 86 St James Street from 30th July to 11th August, and then at The Old School House in Birmingham from 18th to the 27th August.

Accepted into the 2011 London Salon - "The Bather" - model Ella Rose

Awarded a Salon Medal in the 2011 London Salon - "Pearls"- model Nanette McCrone

All of my images with models are created and not just seen, I still remember clearly the points in time when both of these images were produced, and the conversations with the models about what we were trying to achieve with these images. I remember dangling over the edge of the baths to produce "The Bather" and moving my camera ever so slightly to get the pearls in the right place for "Pearls".

A huge thank you to Ella Rose and Nanette for creating these images with me.

Life's a Beach

2011-05-14T15:53:00.001+01:00

Well it appears that the more photographs I take, the less that I post on my blog. I've been pestered by a number of fellow photographers to post more of my work. The problem is that I often take a long time between doing a shoot to finishing any images from it, so I have decided to post more 'in progress' images, which have generally just been played around with in Lightroom.

I will also post more galleries on my website which is pathetically short of images giving the number of photographs I take. I have also just changed all of the galleries on my website to be compatible with iPhones and iPads (converted them from Flash to HTML for the techies out there).

On my recent trip to Scotland I was lucky enough to shoot with Katie Derry, who I first shot in January in a studio. She is a dancer as well as a model and she kindly came up to Scotland to shoot with me and some fellow photographers.

One the one day we went to the beach, and here are a few images from that day, starting with a shot shooting into the lovely sunny sky we had that day. A fellow photographer has pointed out that the model is quite small in some of these images, this is true on a computer screen, but when printed out out at A3 they will be a larger size, also even though she is quite small in the image the eeye is instantly drawn to her.

Now a couple of Katie making lovely shapes next to a big twig we found on the beach. If the shot is going to be colour then I think the 'real' colours just don't look right and an olde worlde look goes better.

For a mono version I'm currently thinking along the lines of a tone with a colour approaching that of sand, as for tone making it quite dark really makes Katie stand out.

From weird colours to very strong colours and Katie making lovely shapes with some fabric wings. I feel that it is the shadow that makes this image, especially as it picks up the tint from the wings.

And finally one with one of the corny props I always carry in the boot of my car. Katie was asked to do a Mary Poppins jump with the umbrella, which she did very well. In the original the colours were very strong and saturated, and just pulling down the global saturation did not work. So I randomly clicked on Lightroom Presets and hit on one called Red Light District, which reduced the saturation of every colour except red to 0% and increased red to 100%. That made her stand out as the rest of the image went mono, then by slowly pulling back the saturations of the other colours I got the more subdues colour effect I wanted.

Thanks very much to Katie for a super day, and I must get round to working on those studio shots from January :)

Random Images and Triple Crown

2011-04-18T21:39:00.001+01:00

I've been reminded by someone at work that I haven't updated my blog recently, which is true, so I'm just posting some random images I've been working on.

I've entered an international in Argentina and because I need to get lots of new images accepted, out of the 12 images I entered 11 of them have not been entered anywhere else. So hopefully that will bump the acceptance numbers up. Here are some of them.

First three from Holly, who else, including some in monochrome for a change. I make no apologies for the number of pictures of her that I use as she is so versatile and creative, and it really is your own fault if you don't get decent images of her.

In this one I must apologise for slightly elongating her legs as this was taken with a very wide angle lens, but she looks great even out of proportion.

Next I was crawling along this bathroom ceiling, and I looked down. Handily I had my camera with me so was able to grab this quick shot :D

This is a random one from last year's summer holiday, where I was playing around with vignetting, Raphaella of course.

Another one that went to Argentina, this time Iveta. I have done a print in this lovely peachy colour and it looks wonderful. I think the competition entry was a monochrome image, which looks just as nice.

And almost finally I was checking a memory card before formatting it, and found images from a shoot last September aagain with Raphaella that I haven't even looked at. yet Fortunately all the images were already copied to my computer and backed up 3 times, so I was safely able to wipe the card, and here is a literally random image from the shoot. I love the way the colours in the wall complement Raphaella's skin tones. I will do a proper entry about this shoot sometime.

And definitely finally, my camera club belongs to a regional federation called the MCPF that covers clubs all the way from Cheltenham up to Leicester, and each year they have a competition to find 'allegedly' the best club in the region. They were using one of my prints this year for the first time, and I was really worried as you don't want to get a poor score that makes your club not do well.

I was helping out on the day, and my job was reading the scores out from the LED display connected to the judges scoring keypads. Three judges scores from 2 to 5, giving a score for each image of between 6 (oh dear, why did you fire that shutter!) to 15 (perfect score of three 5's). When a 15 was scored I tried to do my equivalent of the darts 'one hundred and eeeeeighty' announcer (apologies to non-darts fans who won't understand that) with a 'Fifffteeen'.

My image of Holly 'Simply Red' came up, and I saw the first two judges scored 5, while the judge on the left hesitated and leaned forward to get a better look at the print, then I saw that third 5 come up, and according to my friends present my reading out of the score was a bit more exuberant than the other 15's I read out - so apologies to other photographers who scores the maximum :) I've scored 15 before, but reading your own perfect score out is very nice and a bit special.

Our club won the championship for the print section (and came joint 1st in the projected image section), and to top it all off my print was given the individual medal for the Best Colour Print of the championship.

So here's the image again:

So that's three print competitions it's been entered into and 3 medals it's won. I won a grand total of zero awards or medals last year, so it's difficult to describe what it feels like for the medals to come rolling in for this amazing image. The models are actually not that interested in your images and their successes as they are shooting with different photographers every day, and its generally other photographers who are pleased for you as they know what it means for you, especially the two female photographers I shoot regularly with.

I love this image so much, not because of its success as I loved it before it had even been entered into a competition. It's actually hanging on the landing of our home as a 30 inch square canvas (75cm square for our metric friends) and it gives me a good feeling inside as I look at it as I walk past it each day, that's the measure of a good image, thank you again Holly.

Vintage Holly

2011-03-26T11:33:00.000Z

Those who know me will know that I have a huge backlog of shoots that I have not really made best use of, or in some cases not even used an image from - my current solution to which is to arrange lots more shoots!!! Having to gets lots of different images accepted into international exhibitions for my EFIAP has led to to look back at some of these 'old' shoots. I say 'old' because the images from this shoot are less than 18 months old, whereas some people enter exhibitions with images which are over 10 years old, and have gone naturally sepia :)

So after getting Reflected Beauty with Holly accepted into an exhibition I remembered how many great images I had from that day, so here are a selection of them, interspersed with various nuggets of information which you may choose to read or not in the unlikely event that you get bored with the pictures.

As I have told many people I do not see myself as being creative, I have had a technical education and career, and so have to work hard to try to be creative. I quickly found that one of the first things that help with creativity is getting a good model, and they don't get any better than Holly.

The next step to help creativity is to get a good location. This location is close to Birmingham, not usually known for its green and open spaces, within the motorway ring that encircles much of the West Midlands connurbation. All you have to do is ask the owners whether you can take some pictures on their land, this makes for an interesting conversation, but it is helped nowadays as I have a good portfolio of images to show them the sort of images I take.

It helps if the models fits in with the location you have chosen. Here Holly's stunning classical beauty goes perfectly with the natural surroundings chosen. My attempt at pre-Raphaelitism (is that a real word?) above was actually a test shot taken while I was checking focus and exposure, but is a favourite image of one of the photographers who I regularly shoot with.

After selecting a good model and location, the next element is knowing what all the dials and buttons on your camera do, and how to use them quickly as the light changes and picture opportunities quickly come and go in natural light situations. My botanical knowledge is very limited, but I am told that the plant in the picture above is Rosebay Willowherb which is a weed, a pretty stunning weed if you ask me! You also soon learn that backgrounds matter, and that dark relatively clean backgrounds such as in the two images above do really improve an image.

Then if you find a setup that works, try variations, so in the images above we have a semi-clad Holly and a fully nude in one from the same series as the Reflected Beauty from the last blog post. I actually prefer the wider shot than the image that got accepted in the exhibition.

And finally the light changes in colour, direction and quality throughout the day, and I learnt a lot on this day as I was fortunate enough to shoot Holly for near enough a whole day so was able to see the changing light in action.

These were some of my first attempts at location photography, and looking back I don't think I did too bad a job, although that was more down to the choice of model and location than the actions of the photographer. I shot Holly again quite recently in January, and hopefully it won't be another 18 months before those images see the light of day on this blog.

So one of the morals of this blog entry is if you want to produce great images, whether you are experienced or not is to book Holly for a shoot. She doesn't bite, you'll have great fun and produce some super images, and I believe there is an equally wonderful clothed version for those town centre shoots as well :) Thanks Holly.

It's a numbers game

2011-03-15T20:45:00.007Z

I am still awaiting to hear whether I have gained the AFIAP distinction from FIAP, so in the meantime I am entering exhibitions towards the next step up the EFIAP (E is for excellence, whereas A is for artist).

While the AFIAP only needed 30 acceptances with 10 different images the EFIAP requires 150 acceptances from 50 images, so lots more acceptances but more importantly lots of different images.

So I have started entering more new images in competitions and have been pleasantly surprised to find most of them have been accepted first time round. Two recent exhibitions with new acceptances are both in Serbia, first BOR 2011 and also Portrait 2011, with a total of 15 acceptances between them.

First of the new acceptances is The Red Flower with Katy T. Using the flower was Katy's idea, and I just liked the texture of the well as wall and the shadows, and then fiddling with one of the Lightroom sliders gave the border.

Followed by Reflected Beauty and needing no introduction - Holly. This also breaks all the normal camera club rules of not have an image cut through the centre, but it works for me so who cares.

The next one has appeared on the blog before, but the background has been tidied up a bit. This is The Ram with Tiffany Jayne.

Another one seen before but now in finished form, Falling with Ella Rose.

And another one seen before but now modified quite a bit, Broken Dreams with Fredau.

And finally this was accepted into MidPhot and not an international exhibition, Sand Dune with Chrissie Red.

A couple of things I've noticed looking at the images. First they are all different models, which is good as is shows I can produce good work with a variety of models. And also they all look so different. Some photographers have a style and all of their images have a 'look' about them such that you can often recognise the author from the image. I think you would struggle to say these images are similar in any way, which hopefully means I trying out lots of new techniques and ideas.

The other good thing about these images are that three of them were in the Creative section of a competition. As I don't do natural history or photo-travel images then I am usually restricted in the number of sections I can enter images into, usually monochrome or colour. and only 4 images in each section. However many exhibitions now also have a creative section - which basically means anything weird - so Fallen, Broken Dreams and the Ram are good images for me to enter in those sections in future exhibitions.

Thanks as usual to all the models, and also to all the people who help run the exhibitions. I have seen at Smethwick how much effort it takes to put on an exhibition, and without all those volunteers my images would still be stuck on my computer doing nothing - so a big thank you to you all.

The wrong awards Gromit :)

2011-03-05T11:18:00.001Z

In the two years I have been shooting models up until the end of 2010 I received a grand total of 0 awards in competitions, although I only really started entering seriously at the beginning of 2010.

Then in the Smethwick International I was lucky enough to get 3 awards out of just 4 colour prints including a medal as mentioned in my blog post, which was just amazing.

Well my luck held up and I got another award from the Welsh International Salon in the creative section with a relatively old image of Dani Marie entitled Modesty, this was very surprising as they got a huge entry and I would have been glad just to get acceptances:

It didn't stop there, last week I heard that I also got a medal and a highly commended in Midphot 2011 the exhibition for Midlands camera clubs. I got 9 accepted prints in total including the 2 awards, compared to really scraping 1 acceptance last year!!

And then in the Southampton International Exhibition I got virtually the same result, only 3 acceptances this time, but these included another medal and a certificate (equivalent to highly commended I think!).

Highly commended in both was Pearls with Nanette of course:

And amazingly getting a medal in both of the first two exhibitions it was entered in Simply Red with Holly:

The thing you will notice about all of the award winning images is that they are studio shots, whereas I prefer to shoot and think I am better outdoors - that shows what I know! And also they are all - apart from Modesty - awards for prints, so it also appears my prints are better than my digital images, even though most of the competitions I enter are for digital images.

So maybe I need to do more studio work and more print exhibitions?

Thanks to the models, without whom the images would be rather boring blank backgrounds, Dani Marie, Nanette and Holly.

Slightly Different Ella Rose

2011-02-24T21:25:00.001Z

Ella Rose is a superb model who is often booked to creative classical, romantic images, and indeed I created such images in August in a very short shoot I did with her as per my blog entry from that time.

However that day after that shoot we visited the Victoria Baths in Manchester, who are very forward looking in allowing art-nude shoots in their building. I suggest anybody visiting Manchester pays them a visit as they do need to raiase a lot of money to fully bring the building back to its former glory - taking models with you is purely optional :)

One of the models was Ella Rose, but instead of going for classical images on that day for some reason I was in a mood for taking slightly different images, and here is a selection.

First we have one of the pools itself, the 1st class gents from memory (take a guided tour to hear the story of how they recycled water, and what the ladies had to bath in!).

Nice leading lines, and the now obligatory shot from above.

Talking of which there was a superb glass floor, and I immediately saw the scope for making it into a 50's style science fiction type image, turning the floor into a vertical shaft with the model appearing to fall down the shaft. These have been messed aroound in Topaz to give the effect. My feet have also been cloned out, as I had to hold the tripod our and my arms are only so long.

And finally my favourite from the day, taken with Ella Rose in one of the cubicles. I just like the worn blue posts separating the cubicles, and the faded curtains again enhanced by Topaz. People who see this image have said that it reminds them of the fairground or the seaside.

Why have I done a post with images from last August. Well on Tuesday I went to a distinctions workshop for the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) as I am thinking of applying for an Associatsehip of the RPS (ARPS), and I put all my proposed pictures up as a panel, and the advisers there liked some of them and were less keen on others. Then at the end of the evening I said to one of the advisers I have these as well, and he loved the last one (and other similar ones I showed him), he said they were fresh and modern and that is what I should be doing, I hadn't included them as I thought they were different!! So if posting a blog entry that you intend applying for something doesn't jinx you I don't know what will.

With many thanks to Ella Rose, and I promise to do more normal shots next time - maybe ;-)

Work in progress

2011-01-29T17:56:00.002Z

Well I'm embarassed about how long it is since I've done anything on my blog, which is mainly because I'm doing lots of shoots and working on lots of images for lots of things.

Here's a couple of images I'm working on from Holly and Raphaella

First Holly in the rather large TuTu purchased for my shoot with Joceline last year, put to good use. This is using my now common technique of holding the camera above the model with my tripod outstretched and using a cable release.

An then Raphaella, in a Scottish forest. I'm trying to put a bit of atmosphere into this image, but still have work to do.

As ever thanks to Holly and Raphaella, the models I have shot with the most times, and who have helped me improve my photography.

Calendar Girls

2010-12-24T09:38:00.001Z

Images are produced to be seen and appreciated by others, including people who are not competition judges, models and other photographers. A judge may see an image for 5 seconds as it whizzes past on the easel or projector, and a visitor to a photographic exhibition may spend 20-30 seconds looking at your image if they are really interested in it.

So to get my images to the widest possible audience, for prolonged periods of viewing, I have produced an A3 calendar printed by the excellent Beanprint.com. Chris has an extremely quick turnaround, even at this busy time of year. A calendar is a relatively inexpensive way of getting quite large versions of your images onto people's walls as a year long mini-exhibition.

Enough of the waffling, and for those who I haven't given a calendar to here are the images:

A big thank you to the models, in true Hollywood style order of appearance - Raphaella, KatyT, Chrissie Red, Iveta, IvoryFlame (Holly), Ella Rose, Nanette and Dani Marie. All of whom it goes without saying I would like to work with again.

And remember, to mangle that well-known phrase - "A nude is not just for Christmas" ;)

Why are awards like buses?

2010-12-02T22:37:00.004Z

Last weekend was the judging for the Smethwick International exhibition, which was the first ever exhibition I entered two years ago. On my first entry I scraped 1 acceptance with a projected image of a portrait of a man from Gas Street Basin in Birmingham.

The international exhibitions are organised under the auspices of FIAP - Federation Internationale de l'Art Photographique - and each section is judged by three distinguished and experienced judges.
Each judge gives each image a mark between 2 and 5, with 2 obviously meaning very poor, and 5 the top mark they can give.

My projected image entry absolutely bombed with some of my images getting 8 - two judges giving a 3 and 1 judge a 2 - but I had higher hopes for the print sections where it was a different set of judges, and my prints are generally of a better quality than my digital images.

There were around 1000 entries in each of the print categories - monochrome and colour - and around 20% of the images are accepted into the exhibition. Of my 4 monochrome prints 2 were accepted with a score of 12 - each judge giving a good mark of 4. I was very pleased with this, as getting 50% of your images accepted is considered very good going.

I have had over 40 images accepted in exhibitions this year, but I have never won an award, as these are reserved for the best of the accepted images. Amazingly in the colour print section all 4 of my prints were accepted, with 3 of them gaining awards including 1 medal with that image gaining the maximum score of 15 with each judge scoring it 5.

First with a score of 12 we have Raphaella with The Jump, this image was accepted:

Then with a score of 13 we have Joceline with Branches which gained a Highly Commended award:

Then also with a score of 13 we have Raphaella with Golden Angel which also gained a Highly Commended award:

An finally with the first time I have achieved a maximum score of 15 in an international exhibition we have Nanette with Pearls which gained the SPS Members Medal. As a member of Smethwick Photographic Society which organises the exhibition this is the only medal I can be in contention for in my 'home' exhibition, so this really is as good as it gets.

So just like buses, you wait ages for an award to come along, and then you get 3 all together. Although I'm definitely not complaining :)

It's just left to say a big thank you to Joceline, Raphaella and especially Nanette for creating these images with me, and I suspect I will be working with some of you next year to hopefully create more beautiful images.

Swansea, Smethwick, Slovenia, Southampton

2010-11-09T07:58:00.005Z

What do all those places have in common apart from beginning with the letter 'S'. They are all FIAP accredited international salons I have entered or shall be entering shortly. I think it's just coincidence about the first letter- or maybe it's a good omen :)

Well I've produced some new prints, as I always like to do at least one new image per competition. The first one is taken up at Dave Hunt's studio of the exceptional Joceline.

I love the way she effortlessly mirrors the shape of the branches with ther limbs and fingers. The tree had many sharp branches so she had to carefully slide herself underneath them, but as the true professional she is, she was insistent on getting the pose perfect for me.

The next image is a mucked about version of one that IvoryFlame liked and put on her blog. When Holly first saw the image she commented on how it looked like a desolate landscape, so I have edited the image to give an even greater impression of desolation using a solarisation effect.

And finally I am starting to get some images of Raphaella edited to competition standard, of which I have no doubt I will have many more in the future, so here's one.

I have desaturated the background, and left the pillars in to give a bit of balance. Her torso is largely sharp while there is some nice movement blur in her legs and hair.

So thank you to the models concerned, and next I will be working on some projected images for the same competitions.

In the beginning..there was Holly

2010-10-25T22:33:00.001+01:00

I was very fortunate to have a shoot with one of my favourite models last week, Holly (IvoryFlame). She has appeared in images on my blog quite a few times, and with good reason as she has significantly contributed to the improvement in my photography over the last year or so. In fact there is now an A3 framed print of her next to a spindly tree in pride of place in our dining room.

After this recent shoot it reminded me of our first shoot together in August 2009. I have never really used or displayed any of the images, although looking back at them I think there are some quite good ones. So this blog entry is a step back in time after being reminded of that first shoot, and also because I've been too lazy to prepare any other images for my blog in the last few weeks :)

This was also my first 'group shoot' where there are multiple photographers and multiple models, the shoot lasted 3 hours, with photographers working in pairs shooting each of 4 models for 45 minutes at a time. This was also my first real attempt at low light photography using natural light, I've leave you to judge how well I coped.

So...drumroll..here is the first ever image I took of Holly. I don't think it's a bad attempt, but that's more down to the quality of Holly as a model than any expertise on my part :)

I used a Bleach Bypass preset in Lightroom to take the colour out of the image and especially Holly's skin, then upped the saturation on the Orange channel to just make her striking hair pop.

I used a similar treatment on this next image where we have the lovely Iveta in the background, having her picture taken by one of the other photographers. I love the shape of Holly's body as revealed by the cape, I have tried to get other models to produce a similar shape using the same cape many times since, and have failed miserably on each occasion. It's just a shame about the poor background and burnt out windows.

Next we can see the start of my wide period, where instead of taking a picture of a model, I am taking a picture of a scene that includes a model. The sky is courtesy of a trip to Scarborough. I've also fiddled around with the image in Photoshop to give a bit of surreal effect. Again a superb pose by Holly.

This next image has a very classical pose, executed perfectly by Holly. In this and the previous image I have removed some planks of wood screwed to the wall using the new Content-Aware fill feature of Photoshop, it actually works quite well, and can save a lot of time in cleaning up backgrounds.

And the final image for the blog - although I will be putting many more in a gallery on my website - a different treatment but still emphasising Holly's hair - I keep going on about Holly's hair, but I shouldn't as Holly is an all-round excellent model, who I would work with and recommend whatever type and colour of hair she had.
I've also left the pieces of wood on the wall as I don't think they are as distracting here - plus I forgot!!

So that's it, another entry completed, and hopefully not as long before the next. Another big thank you to Holly, without whom my photography would not be where it is today - the shots from last week were super as well. And I've just remembered another reason for doing a blog entry on Holly, she is the favourite model of a certain person at work who appreciates my pictures, so hello ... well you know who you are :)

Caroline at Attingham Park

2010-10-08T22:11:00.000+01:00

I was very fortunate to recently have a fashion shoot with Caroline, who as well as being extremely attractive has the most amazing head of red hair. Not having done any fashion shoots before I was a bit stumped for locations, but while discussing locations to shoot she suggested a local National Trust property Attingham Park. The National Trust used to have a very poor reputation for allowing photography in their properties, but after a few emails and phone calls I was given permission to shoot Caroline within the grounds of the house.

We started outside the main gate, where the gate provided a lovely out of focus background, and our antics also provided entertainment for visitors to the property driving through the gates, as well as some of Caroline's friends standing outside the hotel opposite the gate. I think the framing works very well, and in the second image I have experimented in Lightroom with the Bleach Bypass preset to tone down the greens, and really make Caroline stand out from the background.

On entering the grounds proper we found a lovely little wood and a tree stump which provided a suitable platform for Caroline. The Bleach Bypass preset has been used again to make her really stand out and provide a bit of atmosphere.

When we first entered the property a very helpful guide told us the story of one of the Lords of the manor, who married a much younger city girl, and then proceeded to bankrupt himself and the family, thereby losing the property. He was also dressed in period costume so during his lunch we re-enacted the country Lord bringing his new young wife who was used to the city to Attingham Park, and a sepia tone seemed most appropriate for this type of image.

Then later in the day a very kind couple who noticed us photographing offered us their Borzoi dog as a model, given that the dogs colour matched Caroline's stunning hair. So here's a quick shot we did on a bridge.

We only shot with Caroline wearing two outfits as she had to change in the toilets, so when she was in the more informal outfit I thought she would look nice sitting on the river bank, as the light was lovely and the dress became lovely and translucent.

And finally Caroline had the urge to go walking into the river, so we thought that the bridge would make a nice frame. This however meant that I had to walk into the river to be in the right position to shoot, so in I went and I was up to my knees. It was freezing but we got some good shots.

So a big thank you to Caroline for making my first fashion shoot so successful, and to the National Trust and Attingham Park for allowing us to shoot there. I would definitely like to shoot with Caroline again.

"If Carlsberg Did Photoshoots - No. 2" - Day 5 - Rain, Rain and er More Rain

2010-10-03T21:09:00.000+01:00

Well I have failed miserably in blogging my last trip to Scotland in April before I visited there again in September, with a similar "mission" as Dave Hunt calls my photographic exploits. So in an attempt to make amends here's the details of the last day of this second trip, purely because I've finished some images - which is a miracle in itself :)

This time the model was the absolutely beautiful Fredau from the Netherlands, but currently residing in Edinburgh. I'm still not completely sure how to pronounce her name, and I called her by numerous pronunciations over the day, happily all of which she answered to!!

Well it was Scotland, so of course it rained. However, I was prepared for the rain and first we started off at an abandoned castle. There was no need for a lookout on this occasion as any passer-by would have drowned before reaching the castle.

Here are some shots in a chamber that was dry, but had great light coming in through a hole. As you can see Fredau has a wonderful figure and such amazing classical looks.

We did manage a few in the castle itself before it rained, and here's one of them.

Then in the afternoon it was still raining, so off we went to a dirty (but dry!!) abandoned building, where the light was super.

The final image was very loosely based on an idea for an image that Fredau had, but actually I think it's probably completely different, as us photographers tend to just go off at tangents.

So a huge thank you to the delightful Fredau, between us I think we produced some super images, even though she had to put up with very cold conditions during the first set at the castle, and got quite dirty during the final set. I do hope to work with her again if she ever travels south.

Tiffany at Blue Carrot

2010-09-20T22:47:00.000+01:00

I've used Blue Carrot Studios on a number of occasions, and will be back again in the future. Its an amazing space with lovely textures and natural light, and a huge number of props.

The owners Mark and Tiffany are really friendly and will do everything to ensure you have a great shoot.

I was very fortunate to recently have the opportunity to shoot Tiffany who as well as being one of the owners of the studio, is also a very good model.

I took a few newly acquired props with me, and here are a few of the images with one of the props.

Now for some strange reason whenever I edit any of the images I shot with Tiffany I have an urge to oversaturate, desaturate, or generally muck around with the image - not always to good effect(Sorry Tiffany!!)

Here's one that hopefully does work, although when I first sent her the image she quite rightly pointed out that her skin was a bit too 'Tango Orange' for her liking, so I pulled the effect back a bit!!!

And finally an image that shows off Tiffany's lovely figure, with a slight rookie mistake in this image in that while her body was lit her hair was not, so as she has quite dark hair it was impossible to get any meaningful detail into the hair. The hair in this photo is courtesy of another image and a bit of Photoshop trickery.

And that's it, I still have some more images to produce for Tiffany - hopefully without too much mucking about with them :)
So thank you very much to Tiffany, both for her modelling and her wonderful studio.

Bink..backwards !!!

2010-09-06T22:28:00.002+01:00

Well I have shot with Madame Bink three times now, so in good old-fashioned reverse order here are some images from our latest shoot last weekend - I have such a backlog of shoots to process now that if I started at the beginning and worked through them then Bink would have retired by the time these saw the light of day :)

And first apologies to Bink for messing around with the images of her, but I am now going through a phase or trying different treatments, some (maybe most!!!) of which don't necessarily work that well.

First we have Bink in a hole in the wall - you'll have to book her if you want to find out where the hole is - and as Bink has a perfect figure, much like statues did in Greek and Roman times, so a 'statue type' pose and an aged treatment seemed most appropriate.

Later is was on to a lake, and some lovely decking presumably used by anglers. There were people camped at the next spot around 20 yards further down, but as we had the unrobing, shoot and robing again down to a fine art it was relatively easy to get a series of good images. Also to get the best angle I used my shoot from above technique. Here is one which I have tried to give the feeling of memories of a relaxing lazy summer day, hence the sepia and desaturating treatments.

Finally a field we found where Bink just slowly walked away from me while I shot. I had a feeling in my mind when I shot it, and I'm trying to recreate that feeling in the this image. I've tried three different versions, and I can't quite make up my mind which I prefer.

Well I now have to work on the other shoots of her. Bink actually embarrassed me into doing this blog entry as she has just put one up on my visit to Scotland on her blog, for which I have not yet given her any finished images :-X (that's the emoticon for embarrassed apparently!).

So thank you very much Madame Bink, until the next time.

Who is Ella Rose? A wonderful beautiful model!!

2010-08-30T13:38:00.003+01:00

I'm probably breaking copyright with part of the title of my quick blog post, which is a about a short shoot with a model Ella Rose whose website name begins with that exact phrase!!

Ella Rose has been on my 'secret' list of models I want to work with for some time, and I had originally tried to book her for my Scotland trip in April. However I successfully made a booking for an art-nude shoot with her over the Bank Holiday weekend, with my two usual fellow photographers.

It then so happened that on the day before our shoot she was also shooting with an artist whose work inspires me Rebecca Parker and Rebecca kindly invited me along to the shoot she was having with Ella Rose.

Rebecca's images look like they take a lot of preparation, and indeed they do. While my art-nude models wear minimal make-up, which often only takes minutes, the make up and hairdo for Ella Rose took hours!! but it was well worth it, and I can't wait to see Rebecca's images from the shoot.

Well my first image is a lesson on how not to do things, and sometimes you need to make mistakes to learn from them. I had an absolutely beautiful model, with wonderful make-up and hair, great location, and while Rebecca went away to get a reflector I took a few shots. However with art-nude shots the model rarely looks at the camera, and you don't always need light in the eyes - for these type of shots you do need to consider more how the light falls on the face and not just the body.

So a potentially good shot ruined by not having the model facing the right way - oops, sorry Rebecca and Ella Rose.

The next shot was more successful. As Rebecca had kindly invited me on the shoot I didn't want to get any shots similar to hers, so out with one of my new techniques I am playing around with, the 'shoot from above' shot.

With me holding my tripod with the camera precariously dangling above Ella Rose, she did her best not to look as worried as she obviously was about me or the camera falling on top of her.

These type of shots are great as the floor is the background, so you don't have to worry about flat or contrasty skies.

We got some super shots the following day on the art-nude shoot, but you'll have to wait a bit for those.

A huge thank you to Ella Rose and Rebecca Parker

Holiday Snaps...with a difference

2010-08-15T22:23:00.003+01:00

Most of us can remember a time when friends would come round to visit us and show us their holiday snaps, and then in retribution you would do the same after your holiday. Unfortunately very few of us were very good at filtering our pictures and only showing the best ones, so we had folders or albums full of these images, all very similar.

I hope not to fall into this trap with my holiday snaps. These images are from my annual holiday in Scotland - where I had already been in April for my mammoth photoshoot - and my (VERY!) kind and understanding wife allowed me to shoot a model who also happened to be up in Scotland at the same time. This also gave my wife the opportunity to meet one of my models in real life.

So here are my holiday snaps of the (insert superlative) Raphaella. I'm afraid I've run out of ways of describing what a super model she is.

First a few (out of around 50) of Raphaella pulling the most amazing shapes and gravity-defying poses under a bridge/arch in a derelict building.

Next a window in the derelict building.

A nearby clearing.

A doorway in the building.

And the arched wall of a room in the building.

I took many more in other locations as well, but aware of what I said in the first paragraph of the this post, hopefully this gives a flavour of probably the best holiday snaps I've ever taken.

Again these are all quick Lightroom captures, rather than finished images.

Thanks again to Raphaella and my very supportive wife.

"If Carlsberg did photoshoots" - Day 1 - Off with the nerves

2010-08-10T22:34:00.002+01:00

Well this was the first full day of my "epic" photoshoot, and so IvoryFlame (Holly) Dave Hunt and myself set off for an abandoned croft.

It was not very large but the light coming through the windows in one of the small rooms was wonderful, and by barely moving 6 inches (15cm for the metrics amongst you!!) in either direction the light falling on her body would have a completely different effect.

After an hour or so Dave had to go back for a previous engagement, and so I returned there with Holly and we continued shooting and got more really great images. Then before leaving Holly posed in the doorway of the croft in a skirt. Now having no experience of shooting nudes in totally public places I was a little nervous. There was a road nearby and I kept worrying that a motorcyclist or lorry driver would see over the wall, and crash their vehicle or something. Holly being vastly more experienced was I think a little amused by my nervousness, but we got some great shots in the doorway anyway.

We had by then worked for a few hours, the cottage was VERY cold, and we would be working quite late that evening with Dave again. So we had a break and I took Holly for a very nice Sunday lunch at a nearby hotel, which was much appreciated by Holly. I find if you treat models well you will get much better images, and to me it is common decency anyway.

After lunch it was back to the cottage where we were staying for a quick cuppa. It was a bit drizzly and we had no ideas of where to shoot next. Holly wanted to just walk into the woods, which again made me feel a bit nervous, but Holly was not going to take no for an answer, and that was the moment referred to in the entry that Holly kindly did on me in her Blog, when I "unsure and nervous at first" finally overcame my nerves, and I have never looked back since - so thank you Holly.

We walked into the woods and first came across an "Alien" landscape and got some nice backlit shots.

On the way back to pick up Dave we found an area that had been cleared except for a few solitary trees, that looked very lonely by themselves, and we got some great shots with a single tree against some beautiful skies. Include this great one titled "Flying Holly" - what else!!

Then we picked up Dave and off to a ruined building for an evening shoot, including some shots with flash as it got dark.

Well what a variety of shots I got on one single day of shooting. Holly is such an amazing versatile and creative model - and thank you for not taking no for an answer :)

"If Carlsberg did photoshoots" - Day 0

2010-07-28T20:04:00.003+01:00

In early January 2010 I decided that although my photography had improved over the previous year, that I needed to do something different if it was to improve over the forthcoming year. I decided that I would like to do more nudes in the landscape, so being a techy person I googled 'nudes in the landscape' and somewhere down the list was a certain Dave Hunt who had a few months before been awarded ARPS and ABIPP distinctions with some stunning images, just the sort of images I wanted to produce.

So 'as one does' I emailed him and asked if there way anywhere I could see his successful panel images, and nice guy that he is he obliged and asked to see some of my images. So I emailed him a Flickr link to some images of Ivory Flame a model who I had shot before and got some good images from, and for very good reason will be appearing in a lot of my future blog entries - for which I make no apology whatsoever. Dave said that he liked the images, and that if ever I was passing the Highlands....

As it was a big '0' birthday this year, I decided to contact Dave and take him up on his offer. It began with thinking about one and a half days of shoots, but by the time it was finished it was seven solid days of art-nude photoshoots in Scotland. A fantastic 'early' birthday present from my wonderful wife.

Well it begin in April with a drive up to Perth where the lovely Chrissie Red and partner Rory very kindly put up a complete stranger for the night, and the following day we picked up Holly(IvoryFlame) and dropped off Chrissie and Rory back at their apartment before going on to Daves.

Rory has recently taken up photography, so it seemed appropriate to do a shoot in their apartment, especially as the evening window light was wonderful. So tripod out and off we go...

All images are simple RAW captures played around with in Lightroom 3 messing with some presets (hence I haven't Photoshopped out the plug sockets in some of the images - apologies ladies!!!)

I have tried to make the tones of the images sympathetic with Holly's skintone and hair colouring. With hindsight we would have removed the cushions, but how many people can produce images like this in their living room?

The window light was great, changing quite rapidly, so you could get different images within seconds of a previous shot. I just love the pool of light on Holly's head.

We did take some of Chrissie and Holly, but mainly Holly as Rory had already got lots of images of Chrissie - althoug you can't have too many images of Chrissie :)

I quite like the Lightroom Creamtone preset used on this image.

And finally sometimes you don't need to mess around with a picture, as its perfect as it is.

So thank you very much Chrissie and Holly (and Rory), this is day 0, as the seven days of shooting don't start until the day after. Watch out for posts on the other 7 days.

Andorra, Argentina...A Table

2010-07-16T17:26:00.002+01:00

Well after a lull in entering competitions because of my trip to Scotland, and the end and start of the season at my camera club, I've just entered two more FIAP accredited international salons in Andorra and Argentina. I have quite a few images that have done well since I started entering competitions 6 months ago, but I wanted to try out a lot of new work to see how it did.

First we have Ivory Flame taken recently in Scotland. I love the light coming in from the window, and how her right hand side is almost silhouetted against the light falling on the wallpaper behind.

Another one of IvoryFlame, this has already been entered in 5 international exhibitions and has been accepted in 4 of them. I played a little bit safe by entering this as I didn't want to enter all new work and get a complete duck. Again its IvoryFlame's torso shaped by light.

Next another new one, this time Raphaella in a new office building. This one is about shape as well as light. The pose looks so effortless when Raphaella does it.

Another new one with Joceline dancing, from the series in a recent post.

And another high key one, Nanette taken with one light with my simple cheap and cheerful studio lighting purchased for £25 from another club member.

The final new one, from Scotland again with Bonnie Scot on the Isle of Arran. An amazing bench with an amazing view.

And finally one for a future competition, but I finished it yesterday so wanted to post it before I forgot it. Hence the tenuous link in the corny title of this post. Raphaella on a table taken at the shoot at Blue Carrot Studios in the preceding post.

Well I should hear the results sometime in August, and then I can see how the new work did and plan what future competitions to enter. A big thank you to these delightful models who made these images possible, all who I would love to work with again.

Raphaella

2010-07-11T17:53:00.002+01:00

I had an amazing shoot with Raphaella in January just before she went abroad to work, of which there is a gallery of images on my website, I was therefore more than pleased - ecstatic I think would be a better description !!! - when I got an email from her recently saying that she was working again.

I did not want to shoot Raphaella in a normal studio with plain backgrounds as I thought that would be such a waste, and I wanted a studio that didn't have the normal glamour sets. Fortunately I had recently found out about Blue Carrot Studio which appeared to offer just what I wanted, and hopefully you can see from the pictures I was not disappointed.

Raphaella is truly the most amazing model. Stunning looks and figure, her expressions and posing are perfect - whether under direction or doing her own thing!! She is also such a wonderful young lady, making the day really enjoyable and great fun.

First we have two with my infamous TuTu's - sized for Joceline for the ballet shoot, so slightly large for Raphaella :) The expression in the first image is just something else.

Raphaella doing what she does best, effortlessly making beautiful and acrobatic shapes.

The studio also has a small secluded garden area, with some super textures, and again stunning poses.

With many thanks to Mark and Tiffany for their great studio, and a huge thank you to Raphaella for contacting me in the first place, and for making it such an enjoyable and productive day.

I have a funny feeling this will not be my last shoot with this lovely young lady.

Simply Joceline

2010-07-07T21:59:00.001+01:00

While chatting with Joceline in Scotland in Dave's studio I mentioned that I would love to shoot her dancing, and she said that there was only really one studio where she could really dance without running out of backdrop, Ariane studios in Tamworth.
I told her that that Ariane is only 15 minutes from where I live, so after a brief email exchange and a 2 month wait we had a shoot there tonight.

My lighting skills are still rather poor, so I practiced with a wooden 'thing' before Joceline arrived and got a lighting setup I was happy with.
Here are a few quickly Lightroom-processed images. Most of the images are ballet type images destined to become mono prints, but as you can see we did a few other interesting styles as well, with implements from my ever growing prop bag (Thanks Garry!!).

So thank you so much Joceline for a wonderful shoot, until the next time.

Retouch workshop with Carl Davis

2010-07-04T11:21:00.002+01:00

In my ongoing quest to improve my photography I had decided that retouching, especially of models skin, was one of my weak areas.
So I contacted a few photographers on Purestorm whose work I admired, asking them about retouching workshops. Some politely declined, while others wanted to charge quite large amount of money for quite short sessions.

Then I got a reply from Carl Davis who has some great work, was offering 1 to 1 workshops at quite reasonable rates, and wasn't too far from where I lived.

The results from the workshop on one of the images we worked on is shown below, on the left is Before and on the right is After, the picture is of Monika taken last year.

In my opinion a lot of photographers oversmooth the models skin in their images so that there is no texture left, leading to the models looking rather strange almost like dolls. The techniques Carl uses do not do that, and while the After image is a vast improvement it still looks realistic.

While Carl's images are of a quite different style from mine, his techniques are quite general and useful on any style of image. So I can now go back through all my images, working out which ones to work on with my new found skills.

Got to start somewhere....

2010-07-03T21:43:00.000+01:00

Well most of the models and photographers I know have a blog, so I was feeling left out.
I work in IT and work with computers every day, but don't really use the technology that much, so here goes.

I'm an amateur photographer from Birmingham, England. I take pictures for camera club and external competitions. I mainly take figures studies - I'll explain why sometime!

I produce far more images than I enter into competitions, so I wanted somewhere else to display them, and here it is.

Here are my latest entries to this Thursdays monochrome print competition at our camera club - the images look much better as prints than they do digitally - I'm pleased with them whatever the judge thinks.

Taken in Scotland over an amazing week with Dave Hunt. The models are Chrissie Red, Joceline and Bonnie Scott - three tremendous and hard working models.