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.

Click here and you can see a flash slideshow of the full set of images sent to the Daily Mail picture desk.

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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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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All Change… At The Top

The night of Tuesday the 11th May 2010 was excellent for me, I had decided at the last minute to see what was happening in Downing Street. The hustle and bustle of the previous few days after the general election had been manic with a hundred Chinese whispers circulating around the Westminster Press pack as to what was going on at any particular moment in the negotiations between the tree main political parties. Nick clegg was here then he was there… Gordon brown was resigning, then he wansn’t… Clegg and Cameron had made a deal then they hadn’t!

As I entered downing street I had peter Mac from Getty Images behind me weilding a monster lens and the coppers on the gate telling me that I was very lucky to get in as the street was going into lock down very shortly indeed. The area of the street that had been set aside with platforms and barriers for the press, directly opposite the door of number 10, was absolutely jam packed with bodies and lenses. The place was buzzing busily and Thanks to Steveie at Reuters I had nabbed his ladder earlier in the afternoon and luckily I was stuck with it. Perched up precariously as high as I could get. A few minutes went by and out came the lecturn. For the first time ever I was at an event where history was literally in the making.

Number 10 staff look on as Prime Minister Gordon Brown stands along side his wife Sarah and resigns.

Final wave goodbye to the onlooking press and British Public.

The night didn’t finish there, we had a short break while the two main men of the moment went to a very low key meeting with the Queen and then suddenly we were back for Act Two.

David came into Downing Street by car and it stopped short of the line of press for him to walk the last few paces to the microphone. His wife Sam stood back a few steps from her husband, in contrast to Sarah Brown who stood beside her man, but I suppose this was Davids moment. I must admit I didn’t hear any of what he had to say, I was too busy concentrating on his expressions and the Buffer on my D3 reaching its maximum, coping with the uber ammount of RAW Files I was taking.

I have to say as a press photographer you long for days like this and it makes all of those endless doorsteps seem somehow worthwhile. I had a brilliant night and if not the best shots out of all the ones taken or published that night, it was an experience and a half and I have some shots to learn from and try and do it better in 5 years time.

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Step up to Power….

Number 10 Downing Street three days after the Tory Leader David Cameron became the British Prime Minister. After 13 years of Labour rule he leads a coalition Government in a alliance with Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. Lets hope it all works out and you deliver some normality and prosperity back to us all.

The most famous door in the land.

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On Assignment – Sir Willard White

Pictured here is Bass Baratone Opera Singer Sir Willard White, and I have to say he is perhaps one of the coolest people I have ever met… A pleasure to photograph, he was asked for an interview by the Irish Independent on Sunday and I was in turn tasked by National News to photograph Sir white in the area of Trafalgar Square in London. After being denied permission to use the hotel we met in for a portrait session, and being escorted away from Trafalgar Square itself by a couple of highly strung power hungry security guards, I was running out of time and Ideas so I chose a plain stone wall at the side if the National Portrait Gallery and set to work… Here are a couple of the resulting images.

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On Assingment – Sotheby’s

I’ve just finished transmitting pictures from a task at Sotheby’s Auction house in London, not an easy job for getting inspiration and like many of these kind of jobs a press release is normally issued to every man and his dog so there are always loads of snappers there and it is a challenge indeed to get something different. As usual the likely lads (or lasses) from the wire agencies go along too so it makes it extra difficult to get things published from a job like this. However, that said it all adds flavour to the challenge…

Caption Used – ‘Sotheby’s auction house in London revealed items in their Spring sale of Impressionist and Modern Art which is to be held in New York on various dates throughout May 2010. Amongst the items on sale are an iconic and rare self portrait from 1986 by Andy Warhol (Estimated Value $18/25M) and a spectacular painting by Henri Matisse called ‘Bouquet pour le 14 Julliet 1919′ (estimated value $18-25M) and Pictured is a Large Orange Canvas which is an untitled painting by Mark Rothko (estimated value $18-25M). Also on sale is Pablo Picasso’s ‘Femme au Grand Chapeau, Buste’ 1965 which is expected to fetch between 8 and 12 Million Dollars.’

I must admit that I normally annoy all the other Photographers with my off camera (strobist) setup but I did it all today using quite a high ISO and less faffing around with lights… I think it is important as a press photographer to be able to show that you can manage the light in both circumstances (using extra lights or just available light).

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