Cutie

My Daughter

I havent posted anything for a while. So I thought that I would add these just to keep it going.

Woodland Fairy

This shoot was hard work, it was very windy and she did not want to have her picture taken.

Chocolate

This little girl was at my daughters birthday party. Initially the image wasn't usable because of the inordinate amount of chocolate ice cream around her face. So with the aid of a PhotoShop generated wet wipe I cleaned her up.

Future son-in-law?

This is one of the candidates who could become my five year old daughters husband.Taken at her fifth birthday party, this cheeky little chap is one of her favorites.

Good Witch of the East

This image was part of a larger lifestyle shoot. The garden is one of my mother-in-laws favorite places, and somewhere that her friends and family associate her with.
My father-in-law has been on the site for a while now. So I thought it was time my mother-in-law also made an appearance.
I have been reliably informed that the coloured things in the background are some sort of flowers. (They dont have batteries or an Ethernet port so they dont figure highly on my list of things to learn about!)

Angel

What more can I say?!

Head to Head

These are the same two brothers as per the previous post. Again I didn't want a standard studio shot, so I got them to go head to head instead. I knew that this pose would invoke a reaction, and I used it to capture them giggling.

Brothers

These two young boys are brothers. I didn't want to capture them with a standard studio shot, ie. both looking the same. So I went for two completely different looks and styles.


The top most image shows the younger one. He has fantastic eyes, so I captured him straight on looking directly into the camera.

For his older (and cooler) brother I went for something much moodier.

fruit of the loins

I hadn't picked this one for the web, but my other half really likes it.

Shot yesterday at a nearby park, it includes my children, some friends kids and, when we counted the feet, an unidentified intruder!

Converted to BW, just leaving the children in colour to emphasise them.

Portal Soft Wear

Shot this the other night as she stood in the doorway.
The key light is actually behind her in the lounge, and I used the white door to reflect the light back onto her face.

Draughts

This was taken ages ago on the old fish docks.
It was actually taken in black and white, then scanned and hand coloured.
I added the yellow wall colour to add some depth to the image. I chose red as the colour of the dress because thats what it was originally. (No imagination!) See also In the Frame

Stone faced

This was a large rock outcrop on the edge of Dalby Forest. I wanted to capture the rock texture relative to the soft curves and clothes of the model.

Flower Power

I loved the way that the light fell onto the models face when she stood in front of this wooden sculpture.

Hide and Seek

On this particular day she didn't want her photo taking, and tried to make life hard for me. Fortunately I am particularly stubborn and a lot more devious. She didn't stand a chance!

Friends

I have been 'told' to take more family portrait shots, so here goes!... A nice standard mum and daughter shot.

Those of you who are observant may notice that I have a nice new backdrop. I was fed up of trying to move the clutter!

Catch me...

All parents around the planet will recognise this stance.
The little girls face tells the other half of the story, she knows exactly what will happen when she reaches her target.

Flexible Friend

I wanted to show something about my friend that described her rather than just a standard portrait shot.
She has always been supple and energetic, so I wanted to capture the essence of her flexibility rather than just her beauty.
We tried a few different positions, but in this shot I like the way that her arms created the triangular frame.

To die for..

I know many women who would love to have eyes like this...
I am sure that her mum will be beating the boys off with sticks in a few years time!

far far away...

Is she dreaming of kissing a prince... or singing with Robbie?

Happiness

The inevitable result of mixing a small boy with a warm day on a sandy beach. The excitement and exhilaration in his face is a joy to watch.
Shot from the safety (and warmth) of dry land with my 70-200mm lens.

Its hard work being this pretty

More from the shoot on Sunday.

Tiring work

I wanted to find a natural frame for her face during the shoot. As soon as she put her head on the table I got her to use her arms as the frame, creating this quite moody image. I then removed the colour to help compliment the overall image.

Go ahead punk...

There isnt a lot to say about creating this image. I didnt even know she had this hat until I saw it in the cupboard. This is the result of ten seconds with the camera and half an hour with PhotoShop...

A.L.F.

This is another photo of my gorgeous godson.

The unusual angle was deliberately used to emphasise his eyes. Plus, because he has an X and Y chromosome his tongue is on display!

He is at that fabulous stage where, if you put him in one place, he is still there when you get back.
Post processed to remove the colouring apart from the eyes. Plus a small amount of vignetting and noise around the edges.

Maid Marion

Now that we are back in business again, I couldn't resist uploading a couple of pics of my daughter.

This pic shows her dressed up as Maid Marion trying to adjust the hair band.

Blue eyes is back

This pic was taken using my new lens when I was wondering what the depth of field would look like.

She was watching Scooby Doo at the time, so being picky about the pose wasn't an option!

Post processed into a Duotone, the depth of field was as it came out of the camera, plus I deliberately left the image contrasty.

Prisoner X

Its actually my other half that should take the credit for this photo. I was taking my son around a go-kart track and it was my daughters turn next Hence the jump suit and pensive expression.

Of course the photo had to be heavily 'shopped' to get it to a level that could be published, but I managed in the end. (With a considerable amount of back seat PhotoShop driving!)

Number 5

This building was on one of my randomised walking routes while on holiday. I loved the panel lines of the various patches that had been applied over the years.
The sun was setting in the background but was still far too bright to be captured by a single exposure. So I set the camera to auto bracket +-2 stops and fired away hand holding!

The image was then brought into PhotoShop and combined.

The Storyteller

This chap was both a brilliant storyteller and fantastic archer, and was entertaining the crowd using both his natural talents. I had great difficulty deciding which of the two I wanted to capture.
I decided in the end to show his ability to tell tales and caught one of his facial expressions as he told one of his gory stories. I used the long lens again (currently my favorite) to isolate him from the Major Oak tree behind him.

Little Squirt

Taken during a barbeque at a friends house, this little chap was very active with his water pistol. The "gun smoke" was actually from the BBQ that he was doing his best to extinguish!It was a very bright sunny day, so I used the garden flooring to provide the fill in lighting, and I used the 70-200mm to take this from a safe distance (i.e. out of the pistols range).

Pleading...?

Actually no... She had just had her nails painted pink for the first time and wanted to show them off!

I used my 70-200mm @ F2.8 from a fair distance away to throw the rest of the garden out of focus.

Pottery Lesson

This was taken during the Robin Hood festival. It shows my son being helped to create an as-yet-undefined pottery artifact by the chap on the left.

Try as I might to get the right angle on the shot I was hindered by onlookers who were oblivious to my shooting. I tried to find an angle that would show the pot too, but when I did, I lost their facial expressions.

The Apocathary

Although it may look I went on holiday to somewhere exotic, this chap was actually in Sherwood Forest near Nottingham!

He was selling Frankincense and Myrrh from a stall at a Robin Hood festival.

Shot using my 70-200mm at F2.8 and 1/160th.

I love the beard and medieval glasses. This guy really takes his business seriously.

Envy

Ok, so her eyes aren't really that colour - but I can wish!

This was another taken in the bath (read the previous posting). She had her head right back looking up at me whilst sat in the tub.

I used the distortion caused by the wide angle lens to create the tapering away of her body and subsequently moved her boobs South. (She wont appreciate that!)

It makes a pleasant change to get back to photographing women. My kids and I have been invited to lots of children's birthday parties recently!

Seaside Glamour

This was a last minute shot taken just before midnight.

Not sure what inspired us to scramble around preparing the image (other than the many glasses of sangria), but it works quite well.

Shot on my trusty old 18-55mm lens while I stood on the sides of the bath.

How I didn't fall in and kill us both I have no idea!

Ouch...

Just as I was about to take a photo of her and her new dolls she hurt herself and the tears began to flow.
I couldn't resist the shot, but before I could even frame her properly she had wiped away the tears and was giggling again. I added the toning to compliment the mood of the image.

Somehow I don't think that this is the photo of the dolls that her grandma expected.

Big Brother

I took the image as my children played in the waves at the local beach. I think it captures the essence of them at play quite well. I used my new lens wide open at F2.8 to capture this shot at 1/2000th of a second, allowing me to freeze the action.

During post processing I changed it to a Duotone and then added a diffuse glow.

Rubik

There is as much chance of this cube seeing all six sides the same colour as my other half admitting to being older than 29.

Taken with my new lens, it gave me the opportunity to control the depth of field exactly as I wanted with having to resort to Photoshop.

The Agony and Ecstasy

Both these shots were taken on the schools sports day.

They show two contrasting views; one of a friends little girl who is enjoying the race even though she came close to last, and the other shows the agony my youngster who had tripped over his rope and lost the race he had hoped to do well in.

Both images were framed to include supporting artifacts; the coloured hoops, and the group of children sat down in the background oblivious to the pain of their classmate.
In order to get the shots sharp, I opened up the lens to its maximum aperture, and increased the ISO rating to 400.

Chaos Theory

Asking six boys to smile and pose for a camera is guaranteed to create instant havoc, and this time was no exception. The hardest task was getting them to stop wriggling and giggling long enough for the camera to fire.

I wanted to take a few more of them, but the poor hapless ones on the bottom of the pile couldn't take the pounding from those further up the food chain.

Shot at 1/200th and F6.3, this was just fast enough to capture the action.

Conspiracies

It doesnt take a genius to work out that something bad is going to happen to someone soon. These two were plotting the soaking of one of the helpless girls at the birthday party. Their arsenal of weapons were loaded and ready for action.

I was worried about making eye contact in case I was targetted. So I grabbed this from the longest focal length that I could hold.

Leap of faith

Where do kids get their fearless ability to leap twenty feet from the top of a slide? I have far too much imagination to attempt anything like this anymore. All I could think about was where I was going to setup the triage area.

It took a few goes to get the camera panning to work, but I had plenty of willing models!

Taken at 1/200th and F5.6 using the 24-135 lens.

Little splash of colour

This was a very low light shot taken at a children's playground. The meter reading was only 1/25th and even then I had to increase the brightness during post processing.

I used the posts nearest me to steady the camera on while I grabbed this shot. All the others I took just weren't sharp enough.

In the frame

Originally shot in black and white, during post processing I hand coloured the dress, background, and skin tones.

I love the way that the doors framed the girl. An open door hidden on the left provided the soft lighting for her face, whilst the background was lit from an open (and missing) window.

This was taken in one of the old dock buildings on the river Humber.
We started the shoot upstairs, but after disappearing up to my goolies through the rotten floor I decided that the ground floor looked better!