Brown Eyes Blue

She was a natural smiler and giggler, but I wanted this pose with the strong shape to really create a darker mood for the image. I used a black background and increased the contrast before removing the colour saturation.
I also changed the colour of her eyes from dark brown to blue using a Photoshop saturation adjustment layer and mask for her eyes. (Click image)

Taken at 1/30 and F4 and 100mm the primary lightsource was on the right with a large reflector on the left.

I got so many good picture from the one session with this young lady that I dont know what to do with them all. She was such a pleasure to work with!

The spirit of Dave

I was tasked to capture the essence of my father-in-law. So with this in mind I added the wine bottles on the right! The expression is typical...

I knew from the outset that this would be black and white, hence the dinner suit.

This was a rather impromptu setup in his back garden so I used the black backing on one of my reflectors to reduce the background clutter. The bright sunlight was too harsh to use directly, so I got someone to hold the shoot-through reflector in front of him to reduce the contrast.

Afterwards I simply added an overall hue to create the 'sepia' style colouration.

I am fairly sure that those wine bottles would have been emptied even before I produced the first print...

Loose Tongue

This little chap had a problem with his tongue. i.e. it wouldn't stay the right side of his lips. So in the end I gave in and captured a few shots with him in his natural state!

Taken at 250th and F4 with very frontal lighting to flatten the image.

Its been heavily post processed to create the image shown.

Thankfully, the weapon wasn't loaded!

...through the eyes of a child...

Self portrait - sort of....
With the camera on a tripod I took a picture of my nine year old, and then uploaded the image to his Sony PSP.
Without moving the camera, I took another photo of me stood in exactly the same spot. It took many attempts to re-size his face on the PSP before it looked right, but the result looks quite spooky!

I removed the colour from the rest of the image to increase the old/young contrast. I left the reflection in the PSP screen primarily to stop the result looking sanitised and false
I thought about doing it the other way round, but haven't tried it yet.

Puddle Jumper

It had just stopped raining and there was a large pool of water just outside our house. She decided that the puddle needed jumping in and I was instructed to fetch her wellies. She took her clothes off because she didnt want to get wet. (Thats her mothers genes!)

I took the shot from the safety (and warmth) of the house through the open patio doors.

Filled in with a flash and toned down the grass with a filter. The flash has frozen the splash nicely...

Skateboard on Steroids

Capturing these two travelling down the hill was more dangerous for me than them as steering seemed to be optional!

The disgruntled skateboards owner was secretly wishing that the mud at the bottom of the slope would slow her down... On this occasion she missed both me and the mud.

I haven't perfected the panning shot yet - at least not while deploying anti-skateboard countermeasures. So this shot had the motion blur added after the event. At least that way my ankles stayed intact!
The only other change was an increase in the overall saturation.

I had a go at standing on it in my garden - the doctor tells me I am healing well...

The eyes have it...

This little angel had the prettiest dark brown eyes, and I really wanted to capture the way they sparkled.
Because they were so dark, I knew they would be tricky to light. However, as soon as I got my act together she really came to life.

I tried so many combinations of lighting that I cant remember what this shot consisted of, but I can assume from the reflection in her eyes that the window was behind me.
She chastised me for calling the little puppet she was holding a rat. Apparently its a cat called Jess, and its been with her for as very long time. In fact, its so well 'loved' that its almost as bald as me!

Angle of attack!

I took this from the scary end of a children's slide, using the unnaturally nice bank holiday weather as a backdrop.

I laid a large white reflector down on the ground to light up her face, but still added flash to create some catch lights in her eyes.

Not your normal portrait pose but very effective in capturing her relaxed and in play.

Boys!

All little boys have the attention span of a full cat! So with the sun behind him I used a large reflector to light up his face. This allowed me to use the motor drive to capture as many images as quickly as possible.

I tried formatting the image in black and white and with many other different options, but decided in the end that it stood on its own merits exactly as it was.

The props i.e. binoculars and tongue, were kindly supplied by the model!

Freckles

This is the daughter of a friend and I captured this shot of during a family trip to the local beach.

Her hair isn't just red - its RED, and I like the way that it has been blown round her face, which in this instance adds to photo rather than detracts from it.

Just used the the sand to reflect light back into her face.
It was taken quickly from a safe distance using my 70-300mm (she was a redhead with an ample supply of rocks) - hence the natural expression.

Weapon of Choice

I wanted this image to tell a story about both of the children.
The boy has just achieved his orange belt in judo and was very proud of the fact.
His sister has just got a new angel outfit and she wanted to show it off.

I gave her the baseball bat to even the fight, hence the impish grin...

The lighting was from a fairly small window behind me, and was assisted with a large silver reflector. I had to increase the ISO setting to 800 to capture them still enough.

During post processing I turned the image black and white, and then hand painted the belt, bat, and angel wings.

The good, the bad, and ?

That would be me then...

I liked the malevolent smile of the 'bad' model at the back relative to the innocent 'good' one at the front. (Click the image to properly see her expression...)

This was originally black and white shot on Ilford FP4.
I hand coloured the models dresses on two separate layers, then added a sepia tone layer for the remaining background.

The wind was blowing in from the right making the dresses flow around.
The lighting was from a large open window on the right and a reflector on the left.

Favorite Toys

Her favorite toys are cats - not just any cats; but Ginger ones! This armful is all she could hold from her vast collection.

Taken on my Canon at 105mm F4 and 1/50. I had to up the ISO to 400 to stand any chance of getting the shot sharp in the fairly dark room.

Updated with a simple hue/saturation filter and mask to highlight just the colour of the ginger cats.

She is so obviously proud of her collection. It all started from a single cat that she couldn't bear to be parted from. So we bought her a spare, and she couldn't bear to parted from that one either... and so on... I think that we were conned by a four year old...

Path

This is a walkway running through the beautiful Forge Valley.

The day itself was awful, with the sky overcast and the no obvious opportunities until I saw how the wooden path disappeared up the hill.

I have dramatically increased the colour saturation as it was very dull and monotone.

I also reduced the depth of field and focused on the area closest to create the effect shown.