Photoshoot - Andrew Johnson

From one creative medium to the next, Andrew Johnson is an extremely talented and young animator. One of his short films has been selected to be aired outside on a large screen in Middlesbrough as part of the BBC's displaying young talent, and as such Andrew approached me in the need of a headshot. With very little time to shoot and process the final shot (4 hours!) we had our work cut out. Inside a nearby office block, we produced your standard headshot. Although, not wanting to miss an opportunity we worked on some different ideas using the surroundings (plus, it was an opportunity to use my orbis and with plenty of white wall space, the honlphoto gels!)

The Orbis really excelled off camera, acting as a fill-light source on a low power for most of my shots. For a gallery containing some of Andrew's shoot, feel free to click here. His brilliant short film entitled 'The Stalking' can be seen here via his website and I highly recommend you take a look.

Photoshoot - Emily Pilton

Dorset on a very wet, dreary and dull day...That is until Emily turned up and rocked her shoot come rain or shine. Ducking in and out of the car at various locations to try and minimise how wet my equipment and Emily might get, she still protested she's never been infront of the camera. A true natural with a great smile, creates what is probably my favourite photograph to date:

With the white balance set at 3400 kelvin, a 580EXII speedlite with full CTO gel rigged inside the umbrella via a Manfrotto Superclamp it produces this stunningly vibrant picture. The colour balance gives lovely cold tones, whilst the gel makes Emily look natural and warm.

A gallery of Emily's shoot can be found here. Huge thanks to Emily for being so willing and motivated during this shoot despite the adverse weather conditions. :)

Kit Bag - Shooting On Location

Product shots are generally shot in an abyss of white space, but like many other aspects of photography I like to work differently. With the help from my brother (a Nikon shooter, ironic huh?) we set up this quick shot to give you an insight to some of the gear I carry about with me on location shoots. It's always important to plan the kit you need for a shoot, as you'll never want to be without that vital piece of equipment which you clumsily forgot to pack.

The lenses cover a focal range of 24-200mm and the 2 speedlites always give me the option to light most scenes should I need, with the ST-E2 transmitter coming in handy by not only controlling the speedlites off-camera but doubling up as an AF Assist.  The above picture shows what I carry most of the time on a day-to-day basis.

Preperation is key, and each shoot is planned carefully. Having  the correct gears means your able to maximise the available time shooting. If your interested in a complete kit list feel free to click here.

Kit Bag - Honlphoto

It's always a pain finding a way to securely attach filter gels to your speedlite whilst avoiding any spill light. It may seem a little expensive at first, but once you use Honlphoto accessories it makes fiddly speedlite attachments a thing of the past. I've just bought two 'Speedstraps' and a set of colour correction gels, and as such now couldn't live without them. It's now possible to set up a quick gelled lighting rig in a matters of minutes with no hassle. Of course now owning the Speedstraps it opens me up to a whole range of Honlphoto accessories I can't wait to try out (Such as the snoots/grids).