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On Assignment – Catherine Casey’s Shed
The brief for this shoot for the Daily Mail was simply, travel to a location near Farnham in Hampshire and photograph Catherine Casey and her shed on wheels. The only instructions further was to have her smiling with the usual head, mid and full length shots…. Other than that it was up to me to be creative.
I arrived at Catherine’s house and luckily had a little spare time to set up and create a plan for the shots required. This was one of the rare occasions that I’ve ever had a make-up artist along for the shoot and while she was working away I had plenty of time to set up and formulate some kind of a plan.
As soon as I arrived I was looking at the ambient daylight and assessing how to handle it. As a photographer you would think that a lovely blue sky and bright sunshine were the perfect conditions for a feature shoot, but that is most definately not the case. Bright sunshine means a very large subject luminance range, for those of you new to digital photography this means there is a vast range of bright and dark areas of your picture (very dark blacks and very bright light areas). Digital cameras have a tough time coping with situations like this, and you will often hear wedding photographers chuntering under their breaths on the big day about white dresses and black suits.
I immediately knew the flashes were going to have to come out and looking at the shed in question I knew also that I was going to need to light the inside to add interest to the background. I always have three speedlights with me, and although I could always use a couple more, three is the minimum for me to be able to get really creative and add that little bit extra.
I set up one of my strobes in the inside of the shed on a small stand, manual at 1/4 power. I only have one set of pocket wizards so I had to take into consideration the fact two of my SB80 flashes would be on slave, the one inside the shed had to be close enough to the door to pick up on the flash from at least one of the others. I set up the other two outside with a shoot through umbrella and a 1/4 CTO Orange flashgel filter on each (slightly warming up the colour temperature of the flashes).
The main flash was powered up to at least Manual 1/2 power for the majority of the shoot to compensate for the fact I was underexposing the ambient to cope with the bright sunlight. The other was used to fill in the shadows that were being cast by the main light. This fill was mainly kept between 1/4 – 1/8 power depending on where it was placed for each shot.
I like to keep the flashes at a constant distance from the subject when I’m working under pressure on press jobs. This means that when the flashes are set up at the beginning there is no further messing about with turning them up and down for each setup. If the terrain and situation allows I will move the subject into position and then place the flashes where I want them, keeping them the same distance away from the subject as before knowing that the amount of light will remain the same. (obviously a little chimping will confirm this is the case).
If the situation doesn’t allow for this turn the strobe up/down a stop as you see fit, the closer the flash gets to your subject the less light you will need so turn it down accordingly and the further away the flash is the more light you need. If at the shooting stage you are changing position or you are changing lenses and therefore perspective, you can leave the flashes exactly as they are as the exposure should not change dramatically but you will gain a different shot for the set without changing the setup.
Once the flashes were set it was then a case of working away to get the maximum number of poses and shots done before Catherine became bored of me saying “just one more”… Thanks to Catherine for her patience and to her husband for letting me into their wonderful home.
I ended up sending a total of 27 shots from this one shoot across to the Daily Mail picture desk that night. I would say that this is an average number to send although the trick is to get to the stage where you are seriously happy that you have a full set of good shots with no real fillers… bearing in mind of course within this that you need both your GV’s and your detail shots of the subjects. You will have to ensure that you follow the brief and get your correctly exposed head, mid and full lengths, but this leaves at least 15 good poses, expressions and/or situations to provide the editor with, a decent range of pictures to choose from that also fits with the story.
Marketing Expert Catherine Casey from Bentley Near Farnham proudly shows off her glamourous shed. The small wooden structure which was once a working shepherds hut is kitted out with power sockets, an internet connection, spotlighting and a quaint wood burning stove. Shepherds used wheeled huts like this one during the 6 week spring lambing season, towing them into the hills as an essential 24 hour shelter.
The published article.
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Our Daily Visitors
We have two gorgeous little black kittens visiting us on a daily basis… Of course they come to us because we feed them in the morning but who could resist? They are about 4 months old and their mother who is just a bigger fluffier version than these two is a stray that lives in next doors shed.
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On Assignment – Vintage Goodwood
I was commissioned by the Daily Mail to cover the Vintage Goodwood festival event at the weekend, and as promised to so many people I took pictures of, here are some of my favourites for all to see.
The Vintage festival at Goodwood celebrates five decades of British Cool. The three day music and arts festival aims to be the country’s biggest celebration of all things great about Britain’s vintage past. 5 decades were represented from the 40′s to the 80′s, with music on the main stage from the likes of Sandy Shaw, The Feeling and The Buzzcocks the venue boasts a high street, a vintage fashion show and a Roller Disco. Also on show were a large number of vintage vehicles, including many highly kitted out caravans and campers. With many visitors wearing clothing from their preferred era.
Click here to view a slideshow of some favourites from the event.
Celebrating five decades of British Cool are Keith and Angel O'Brien from West Yorkshire, seen here outside their eclectic 80's caravan kitted out in a 50's style complete with garden fence and deck chairs.
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Rogues Gallery
I have just set a page in the editorial section of my website dedicated to fellow photographers on the press circuit in London… I have called it a Rogues Gallery, some of them are in their own way… but I have decided that some of the test photographs that I take whilst on a doorstep or at a press call are actually passable portraits of the people I work with. I have put it on a static webpage and not on a blog page so that I can keep adding to it all the time, so here they are and I will add the newest to the top each time.
Check out my Rogues Gallery Page…
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Archive – Ginger Surprise
I was up till about 4.30am this morning sorting out my Image Archive into a 1TB Hard Drive… you know how it is when you get started with something and you cant stop till you’re finished. I got into a rhythm and get real satisfaction from having all my shit is one sock!
I now have the enviable task of renaming, cataloging, matadata and keywording and then Backing up of 250,000 images that include RAW and JPG files, PSD’s and a few movies…. It makes me wish I’d been on the ball with my archive from the start. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
It was a refreshing look at some old images though, and having a cursory look through the folders on 4 different external hard drives made me realise just how many images I have festering in their naughts and zeros form with little hope of ever seeing the light of day let alone getting them published anywhere.
So I have decided to release some of them, and on quiet days I promise to have a search through and show some of them on my blog. Here is the first and I think it’s a funny one from My archive back in 2004 when I was a serving member of the Royal Navy Photography Branch with the Royal Marines in Iraq.
I was on Patrol with the lads from 40 Commando in Basra City and we were driving in a small convoy of snatch Landrovers when a message came over the radio to stop so that one of the fellas could investigate something by the roadside. I took the chance to get out and take some pictures of the Marines on foot in the streets and was confronted by the subjects of the patrols fascination. To our amazement amongst the locals were these two Albino Ginger Iraqi kids.
After a ten minute photo-shoot and and a lot hand shaking with the local kids we were on our way again… On the same patrol I saw this young Iraqi child dangerously dodging through the Marine Patrol with a toy AK47 assault rifle.
I think it’s always worth having a dig around in your archive every now and again. Perhaps there are some old images that may enhance or refresh your portfolio. Even though they may not be the most recent of images you may find some gem shots from a portrait shoot you didn’t even realise you’d taken at the time… I intend to write quite a few posts around images from my archive as I complete the mammoth task of sorting them all out. As always comments are very welcome.
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On Assignment – Nikki Owen
My first job this year, back in January, was a PR task with a brief that was to take some portraits of Nikki Owen, the UK’s leading Charisma expert. She needed some images that could be released to the press during an upcoming public relations promotional campaign. Nikki was about to gear up her public profile before the release of a reality TV show, in which she helps to take a group of women from the kitchen sink to the catwalk. With this in mind I set to work on location at the Shakespere’s Globe theatre on the South Bank of the River Thames in London and these are a selection the resulting images.
Click Here to see a slideshow of the results from the whole shoot…
Nikki was kind enough to write the following testimonial.
“Having experienced many different photographers throughout my career, Lee Durant is absolutely at the top of his game. I wanted seriously creative and imaginative shots that were required in a venue that was tricky from a lighting perspective. Whilst working with Lee at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, he amazed me with his attention to detail, his brilliant ideas and suggestions and his genius with getting the lighting perfect. He is friendly, professional and inspiring to work with. I will continue to work with Lee again and again – in fact he has already received more work from me!”
We had a great day and the Shakespeare globe staff were brilliant and extremely accommodating, providing us with a great venue for portraits and at no time did they pressure us to move on. Caroline from Fosbury PR, as always was wonderful to work for. A whole days editing the images later and a total of over 90 Hi-Resolution images provided for I hope another happy client.
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Simon & Charlotte’s Wedding
The 30th of April saw me heading off to Southampton to meet and Photograph Simon and Charlotte on their wedding day. The weather was windy with sunshine and clouds and both Bride and Groom looked great with a small and intimate family service at the towns Registry office followed by confetti throwing and a few photographs outside. Their reception was held just a short distance away on the Southampton based Princess Caroline Cruise Liner. I have to thank Caroline and Simon for putting their faith in me to take part and record the day in all its detail. you were both very welcoming of me and what great family and friends you have who all made me feel so very welcome for the whole day… I hope you like your pictures.
Click here to see their wedding gallery…
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