Monkey Boy

I struggled for ages trying to get a decent shot of him. It didnt matter what I did or said, he did NOT want his picture taking - and it showed.

In the end I used the monkey toy to give him something to cuddle and he relaxed.

Lit from a flash shooting through a white brolly on the right, and filled using the plain wall on the left as a reflector. I used a second flash on the floor behind to light the rear wall.

I then changed the overall image to black and white, and then added a saturation layer and mask for his eyes.

Taken on my Canon D20.

Hit and Run

Taken from the top of my classic Italian sports car (read: rusty junk) this image features one of my rare nudes.

The farmers rape field had a track running down the middle that I used to get my car into the center. I stood on the roof of the car to get this upside down image.

Taken on Kodachrome film and scanned. I applied a motion blur to the reflections and to the ground itself to make it appear that the car is moving.

This field was in the middle of nowhere with a good view in all directions so the model wasn't worried about being seen. However we didn't expect the small squadron of microlights to fly over!

Silhouette

Opportunist shot taken while on holiday in Spain. For once the model wasn't whinging about being cold, but was whinging that the rocks were sharp.

The sun still had a long way to go down, but I wanted to include it in the photo. So after making sure the front of the lens was immaculately clean I managed to get this image.

I had Fujichrome slide film loaded at the time, but still managed to meter it quite well.

Scanned and post processed to increase the colour saturation in the sky.

Day Dreamers

A local barn was made available for this shot of two friends.

Each time I pressed the shutter they had to stop breathing, otherwise their breath could be seen in the cold air. Despite their clothing looking like summer outfits it was actually snowing outside.

The daylight came in from the open loft door on the left, and I used a single tungsten lamp at the back of the loft to separate the dark hair from the background.

Shot on Fujichrome to enhance the contrast levels of the location.

Whitby Boats

Some small fishing cobbles moored up in the small fishing village near Whitby.

The original image was very flat, so I used an embossing layer to emphasise some of the detail in the writing and the decaying woodwork. See the small image for how the original looked, although you will have to click them both to zoom in.

The result looks like the name has been carved into the boat, and brings much move life to the image.

Three non blondes

Three friends that had very similar hair and colouring.

I wanted to make the central girl with the beautiful brown eyes the focus of the image, so I got them to spread their hair around, trying to get it to blend together.

I have also added a subtle noise layer to the outer areas, and the general tonal values have been altered to highlight the skin tones
A saturation layer and mask has been added to increase the colour of the three different lipsticks.

Taken on my old Minolta 9000 using Fujichrome film and scanned. The lighting was a single window on the right, with a reflector providing fill from on the left.

Cross, Channel, Swimmer

Taken at a leisure complex near Blackpool this one shows up the strong colours and shapes and of the building.

As soon as I got there, I liked the way that the centre channel of the wall leads the eye down. So I waited until the sun was just right and added the girl in the pose shown.

Shot on Kodachrome with my Minolta 9000 and scanned, this shot required no post processing at all.

The slide film makes the sky at the top of the frame behind the white handrail almost black.

Skylight

This was shot in a derelict building on the old fish docks, parts of which were a little unsafe. However it was a fantastic place with lots of character available, as long as you are brave enough to tread on some of the floors! The tripod also came in handy to scare off the rats...

No flash used, just the available daylight and a little imagination. It wasnt possible to balance out the lighting on the model with the sky, so I had to improvise later.
The lighting was metered to show the models face only and give a hint of what she might be wearing.

Shot on Fujichrome slide and scanned.

Tree Nymph

Originally shot on Fuji slide and then scanned, this shot was taken at a fairly secluded spot not too far from where I live.
The tree was hollow, and had this nicely shaped split in one side.
I used a gold reflector to bounce back some of the light and emphasise the way that the tree followed her shape.

Post-processed to provide some depth of field plus a saturation layer and mask added to selectively remove the colour from the background.

Getting the model in the tree was a challenge, and I ended up lowering her in using the tow rope from my car.
Although the site was in the middle of nowhere, just after she handed me her last article of clothing, a mass of farm laborers happened to wander by!

Sun worshipper

Scanned from an original Kodachrome slide, this is all about the colours. I have deliberately broken the one third rule on both the horizon and subject.
Taken on my old Minolta 9000, and after scanning very little post processing was required.
This I chose a farmers field that had a slight hill, which gave the effect of showing the rape all the way to the horizon.

As I was taking the shot the model was hissing at me to get a move on as something was crawling up her leg! Some people get very fussy about the way they are immortalized.

Red Light Girl

For safety's sake, I took the model to a well known red light area of town very early in the morning.
No one else was around, apart from a British Gas van who drove passed again, and again...

Fuji slide film digitally scanned. I have actually had to tone down the red of the 'dress'.

If you look carefully, the white streak going past the models knee is actually snow. She really whinged about doing this shot in the cold and dressed like that!

BMW

Taken in the year 1BC (Before Canon) this is of a friend who wanted a picture of her and her car! Unfortunately it was too dark outside so I used the time to get some test shots. Found this angle worked really well.

Single on camera flash with a reflector bouncing some light back to fill in the shadows.

I have upped the saturation and used a curves layer to alter the tonal range.
The camera was too limited to create a workable depth of field, so I added a second layer with a Gaussian blur and layer mask.

When I showed the photo to her and her friends, they all asked who it was, including the girl herself.

Water works

Kids, water, and cameras dont mix, so I used my 70-300 to get this from a safe distance. It was a bright sunny day, so with the sun behind her I used a 580ex to fill in.

I like the vivid colours in this shot, plus you can see that she is in her element.

Not a lot of post-processing, just sharpened and boosted the colour saturation a little.

Darth Mauls Younger Days

He was supposed to be a tiger, but I thought that he looked more like the evil character from the Star Wars film.

This was actually taken on holiday just after he had been face painted.

Single on camera flash, in my pre Canon days.

Mirror Mirror on the wall...

I had been wanting to take this photo for a long time, and it the opportunity came just one month after I purchased my Canon D20.

The primary lighting is from a flash gun bounced off the ceiling to provide a very soft light. A second flash was set in front of the model on a remote trigger that provided some lighting for the fireplace.
There is some tungsten lighting that can be seen in the mirror that I used to provide a little warm colour in the reflection.

I wanted to candles to play a big part. So I had to shoot from a tripod with a long exposure.

It took a while with a curves adjustment layer to get the sheen on the back of her legs right.
The outside of the image was softened and a colour cast applied to give it a dreamy feel.

Upon Reflection

Tried to capture a more serious image rather than the usual portrait shot.

Used two flash guns, one was under the table providing some faint lighting for the glass top. Didnt want too much otherwise the reflection would have been lost.
The other gun was used 'bazooka' style in a cardboard tube to just light her face.
The remaining light was provided by the tungsten lights shown.

Bedtime Story

She was utterly spell bound listening to her grandma reading a story, and didn't even notice me taking the picture.

To draw attention to her serious face and the story book, I changed the focus points of the image.
Then I reduced the colour saturation in all apart from the red dress.

There was no lighting other than the daylight coming from the large window on the right.

Caught off guard

Grandma stealing a kiss during a family BBQ.

You can see the sulky result of him being disturbed from playing his game!

I was asked to apply a 'Doris Day' filter to take off some years.

The patio paving provided a lot of fill-in, and the sky was bright but overcast causing the lovely soft lighting shown.

Daisy

Taken at home during the summer when my daughter was picking daisies in the back garden.

I really liked the attention grabbing sparkle in her eyes, so to emphasise it more I added some soft focus to rest of the image.

Taken with a 70-300mm from about 15' away.

I much prefer this type of spontaneous portrait, rather than the 'one-size-fits-all' studio shots.

Big Brother

As soon as I saw these two walking up the alleyway in Majorca I knew the shot I wanted.

I post-processed it with a simplifier filter and boosted the saturation. But this is essentially exactly as I saw the finished image before I even picked the camera up.

Hide and Seek

This was a friend that wanted a photo of herself for her father.

My challenge was that I was asked to hide her extremely large chest.


I was very time limited, and I tried many different camouflage techniques and angles but without success. Then on the last shot of the set I found this solution. Daylight from a window on the left was balanced with a reflector.

For months she had a copy of the photo up at her home, and virtually everybody asked her who it was! I dont think many people had previously looked above her neck line.

Cold Water

Taken at the local beach during November 2005. The sky was a total non-entity and it was very misty. I didnt re-frame the sky out because I knew that I could post-process a little colour wash to bring some life to it.

The juxtaposition of the people and the sea was deliberate, and I left the subjects far over to the right to emphasize the incoming tide.

The pose is something that every parent can relate to, and requires no explanation at all.

Grandma's Treasure

This picture has had a number of effects applied to get the result that I wanted.
Primarily I used the watercolour filter within Photoshop, but had to manually alter some regions by hand.

This was another snap, and contrary to how it may look now, it wasn't posed for. In fact, due to the lack of preparation, it took a long time to reduce the background clutter during post processing.

I feel that its one of the shots that sums her up.

Above and Below

This shot was taken at the same place as my previous post 'dead in the water'.
It has had very little changed, other than the colour saturation increased.
I really like this one as it isn't immediately obvious that the boat in partially underwater, and people often do a 'double-take'.

Dead in the water

This was a derelict boat on the local river near where I live.
As soon as I saw the fence posts behind the boat I realised that I could remove one of them in post-processing to create the cross.
I also changed the colour scheme to make it partially black and white, mainly by removing the green components. This gave me the background that would complement the state of the boat itself. Leaving some partial broken colour on the boat lifted it from the background.