Evening Portrait Photo Shoot

As always I've been working on my portfolio, and here's a few images from a photo shoot this past week with Phillip Hughes; a great guy who also happens to be an amazing hair stylist (not that I have much need for that).

We met up early evening around 3.30pm for a quick coffee and chat and after 10 minutes or so of 'warm up' shots we headed off ...


This series of shots were taken on a grass verge next to a main road in Old Beaconsfield:



... and this is a sample of one of the shots taken on the top level of a multi storey car park overlooking High Wycombe.


I'll add a short post showing the lighting set up and editing in a couple of days or so but in the meantime,

Enjoy ;o)

Photo Shoot on my Doorstep: A Walk-Through

Following on from a few requests I thought I'd post a short 'walk through' for the recent 'Photo Shoot on my Doorstep' Post so here goes....

Firstly, here's a shot of the location used taken as the camera sees it ... no flash, no exposure compensation, nothing, nil, zilch, rien, nowt ... just plain old 'P'rogram mode:

With the camera now in 'M'anual mode I brought down the exposure a couple of stops to give the sky a bit more 'mood'. I did intend to use just the one light i.e. my trusty Alien Bees 1600 fitted with a large Octabox but the colour of the motorbike just meant it blended in with the background and all it's detail was being lost, so the solution ... throw some light on it.

Here's a diagram of the lighting set up:


The extra light on the bike came from a 'George' Stand i.e. a V.A.L. (Voice Activated Light Stand in the form of my next door neighbours son, George) holding a Nikon SB800 Speedlight aimed at the bike from the right of the camera.

... and here's the resulting image along with the final edit following a short time in Lightroom and Photoshop:


And that, as they say (whoever 'they' are) is all there was to it.

Bye for now ;o)

Interior Photography - Something different

Rather than shooting portraits, I got the chance to shoot some interiors the other day; commercial work for Oxygen Hair & Beauty Salon in Beaconsfield, Bucks.


Having gone through a major refurbishment, the owner Angelo asked me to photograph the beauty treatment and colour rooms so that the images can be used to advertise their expansion and the new services available to clients.


The big question on the day was 'What technique do I use? ... Flash? Available Light? HDR? ... the list is literally endless, so to make the decision easier the answer had to be do a mixture, and that's exactly what I did.

Right, now to get back to photographing people ... phew!

Quick Photo Shoot on my doorstep ... sort of.

Here's a sample shot from a recent photo shoot with a great guy by the name of Lee Steptoe. This was taken at a location I've only just discovered and that happens to be literally ten minutes from my front door (Note to self: may just use it in an upcoming workshop).


I'll add more of the images from the shoot in due course but for now I need to catch up on some editing so I'll bid you farewell.

Enjoy

** Another note to self: Get out more to find other cracking locations on my doorstep rather than driving miles hunting for the same..doh!

iPhone Photo Gallery - France

Continuing with my tradition of photographing any outings using the camera on my iPhone and believing that 'the best camera to use is the one you have with you' here's a few shots from a recent trip over to France; starting at Dover then over to Calais & Boulogne.


As is always the case, all the photographs are edited using iPhone Applications and not in the computer.


Any avid iPhone camera user will know that there are now literally hundreds of picture editing applications available but having tried quite a few of them, I'm tending to stick with: Photogene, PhotoFX, TiltShift and Best Camera, a recent addition from Pro Photographer Chase Jarvis.


You can check out my iPhone Photo Portfolio by clicking here and to keep up with all the latest photos, news and upcoming events why not join me on Facebook (GlynDewis) / Twitter (@GlynDewis)

Enjoy

News & Stuff

For those of you who have connected with me through Facebook or Twitter you'll know that I regularly upload pictures from recent photo shoots for you to see. By doing so people add comments and add a marker if they like them which is a great way to get feedback. Anyway long story short, the other day I noticed that Photoshop & Photography legend Scott Kelby had marked that he liked some of my recent work.


To me this was a much needed & very welcome boost. Getting positive feedback is always nice, but when it comes from one of your peers, someone you aspire to it means a heck of alot...not least when they're the World's Number 1 author of Photography & Photoshop Books as well as the President of the NAPP.

Looking through the new Loxley Colour product brochure the other day I was made up to see that they're using one of my images to promote their new range. Loxley are a printing lab' for professional photographers and are very respected amongst the industry so I was pretty stoked to see that they chosen one of my images.


Sunday 22nd November is the day that I plan to hold my first workshop and I'll be sending out the invites very soon. I'm really looking forward to this especially as I'll be still on a 'high' having just got back from Atlanta USA spending time with Zack Arias on his famous OneLight Workshop.

That's all for now, so have a great weekend.

Insight Photography Workshop - Trash the Dress

Finally got round to editing some of the video footage from the recent 'Trash(ish) The Dress Photo Shoot in Egham, Surrey and have put it together to form Episode 2 of my new video series 'Insight - From Concept to Print'. I call it a Trash(ish) the Dress shoot cos we didn't actually wreck the dress, but then we are having a second session so watch this space.

In the video I go into the lighting set up which was actually very simple using just the one strobe but a couple of different modifiers (softbox & shoot-thru umbrella). This time you don't get to see any editing and the reason for that is the only editing involved was converting the image to a black & white.

Enjoy



ps> If you didn't already know I now have my own YouTube page where you can view videos from previous photo shoots; you can check it out by clicking here.

Trash The Dress - Well, sort of ...

'Trash the Dress' is the name given to a style of photo shoot where a woman will again get dressed into her Wedding Gown but instead of having 'Wedding' style photographs taken, the artistic approach is pushed that much further. Out in the US where this concept was born it's not unusual to see photographs of brides in caves, submerged and I've even seen shots where the dress is actually on fire whilst being worn. Here in the UK, Trash the Dress has started to filter in but from it another concept called 'Cherish the Dress' has appeared which is really more of a fashion style shoot and is guaranteed to leave the dress completely intact.

Some time ago I was contacted to see if I would photograph, and I quote, a 'Trash(ish) the Dress' shoot. Turned out what was being asked for was a sort of half way point between 'Trash' and 'Cherish' so after several get togethers with the clients, Michelle & Dave Caton-Richards, the date and location for the first shoot was set.


The first of the two shoots found us in a Garage/Workshop in Egham, Surrey where the owner kindly gave us permission to do whatever we liked once the last customer had gone. Michelle was very keen to recreate the tyre shot made famous by Herb Ritts and that I recreated a few months back (shown here with model Danny Bartlett).


... and here's Michelle


I remembered that when we first met I asked Michelle & Dave to bring along some pictures that they had seen in magazines that they really liked the look of, and one in particular was of a man & woman grasping onto each other in an archway. The picture oozed passion and it was this kind of a feel that both Michelle and Dave were keen to achieve.


This was in fact the last series of photographs we worked on as by this time both were very used to being photographed and feeling considerably more at ease, but then that's probably down to the wine that was on the set too.

My good friend and video Guru Vince was with me on the shoot; a big help with setting up and filming what went on. This footage I'll be editing over the next few days and will post here on the blog along with some of the editing that I've done on some of the photographs so you can see everything from set up to final images.


The second photo shoot with Michelle and Dave is planned for later this month where we'll be photographing in a Country Park, a derelict Abbey and temperature permitting...a Lake, so watch this space.

More later,
Enjoy