Tagged: black and white

MUSCLE UP !!!

I’ve had a few emails asking whether I’m still alive or not… Yes. I’m just massively involved in an exciting photographic project at the moment, which has taken alot of time away! But here’s a cool shot I took for ‘fitness industry promotion’ purposes of late. Steely determination, muscular definition, iconic stance, menacingly engaging eye-contact… simple yet effective! Thanks to Jay Revell, a consummate pro in front of the camera – follow him at his twitter here!

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 24-105mm lens at 88mm, f 7.1, ISO 160, 1/60 sec.

CHARITY STARTS AT ST. PAULS !!!

I did some work with a great and hugely deserving charity recently, Street Child World Cup, who’s work ensures that marginalised children living on the streets in the football World Cup host nations aren’t just swept away as an inconvenient mess on a suddenly-scrutinised cityscape. They host a huge footie tournament of their own for the children, along with a conference, both just ahead of the world cup itself. And they’ve had top-end endorsement from the likes of David Beckham, Pele, Alex Ferguson, Desmond Tutu, Gary Lineker, David Seaman, Eduardo, Shevchenko and heaps more! Expect to hear alot more about them as we head into Rio 2014.

This shot was taken on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, hosted by the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, pictured in ecclesiastical garb, centre, along with some local school children keen to promote the cause! I took some traditional ensemble shots, but didn’t like the lack of edge, angle, vitality that seem to me the whole point of what the charity exists for. So I decided to play around with the perspective and angles slightly. I had to rely on my 5km-long diffuser (the cloud cover) to provide lighting on this freezing winter’s day, but I think it did the trick! I love the imposing Corinthian columns of the architecture, set against the imposing stature of the group, and the starkness of the Bishop’s crosier. This is the shot they went with in the end 🙂 

YOU MAY KISS THE BRIDE…

Feeling romantic? These two were. Last September, I shot a wonderful wedding in the most grand and elaborate gothic setting… but there are times when the location plays second fiddle to the main event, the bride & groom kissing to seal their marriage! Ahh.

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 70-200mm lens at 200mm, f 4.0, ISO 3200, 1/60 sec

JUST GRIN AND BEAR IT !!!

Meet my test model, Bjorn. Whenever I get a new piece of equipment, this little guy gets to try it out first, from the other side of the camera! It might look like Bjorn is photographed here on an arctic snowdrift, but no, that’s actually just a white chair. And no, Bjorn can’t jump, so he’s not mid-air here, just resting himself on the top of the chair. This was just a test for a new strobe I got. No need for technical details, but in short, he did the job as ever 🙂

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 50mm lens at 50mm, f 1.2, ISO 500, 1/40 sec

GROOM YOUR HAIR !!!

A bit of wedding photography never goes a miss. Especially when the groom is getting into his uncle’s vintage Rolls-Royce 1959 Silver Wraith, which seems to be a giant soft-box / light trap on wheels. This was such an easy environment in which to capture some iconic shots of both bride and groom, in a flattering, uplifting light – enabling some optimistic, high key images of classical wedding splendour! Their beaming emotions help out a bit too 🙂

Both shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 24-105mm lens at 105mm, f 4.0, ISO 160, 1/100 sec.

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE BOUGANVILLA !!!

A visit to Ibiza is never mundane. I took this shot in the tranquil nature-Spa of Atzaro, where orange tree meets both Buddha and house music. I particularly like the vibrant lilac canopy of bouganvilla, the intense green of the reeds, and the intersecting diagonal path. Also there is a sense of humorously playing with proportions here; the flowers, their stems, their reach and projection of the branches, are all seriously outsized relative to the girl. It’s like a ‘glam-chic’ version of Alice Through the (Mediterranean) Looking Glass. If nothing else, it just makes me smile 🙂

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 24-105mm lens at 55mm, f 5.6, ISO 100, 1/250 sec.

LIGHT IT UP !!!

During a recent corporate video shoot, I got a chance to play around with some of the awesome lighting kit on hand, and trial it out for portrait purposes. I think that by far my favourite were the fluorescent products from Kino Flo – yes, their Diva-Lite 401 product. For this shot, I positioned one diva kit above the gentleman’s right shoulder (left of the screen as you look at the image), attached a Flozier diffuser & a silver Louver to both focus and scatter the beam, and then used a Sunbounce reflector disc to fill in the shadows on his dark side. The barn-doors are so accurate, they totally clip the light into a very useable corridor (though i eventually covered them with the diffuser), and whilst it’s not a strobe sync product, i find the intensity of the beam so good that I can push down to lower ISOs without fatally compromising on shutter speed! There is very little need for post processing – pretty much everything is done in-camera!

Set against the backdrop of the City of London, I think the result is an imposing and important portrait that keeps the attention focussed on the piercing eyes!

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 24-105mm lens at 105mm, f 5.0, ISO 100, 1/160 sec.

GRAND IDEA !!!

A recent trip to Stockholm gave me an opportunity to take a snap of a bathroom towel. It was really just another test of the 5d mk 3 sensor, as I hand-held the camera at 100 ISO and a slow-ish prime lens, yet still got this level of clarity from the shallow depth of field. That’ll do the trick 🙂

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 50mm lens at 50mm, f 1.8, ISO 100, 1/8 sec.

GOODBYE OLD FRIEND ???

When I say ‘Goodbye’, I am talking about losing that old friend, my 50mm f1.8 lens. Its cost effectiveness as a wide prime lens has long been revered, but it is time to move onward and upwards to something altogether more exciting. This headshot portrait, taken as part of a publicity shoot for an aspiring musician MC XTREME, is the last I will likely ever take with that lens.

I’m ‘over it’, because it has been replaced in the kit bag by an all-singing, all-dancing 50mm f1.2 L ‘hyper-prime’ (as i like to call it) contraption. The quality of the two is almost incomparable. I look forward to posting what it can yield, but in the meantime, this will do for today 🙂

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 50mm lens at 50mm, f 3.2, ISO 100, 1/50 sec.

SNOW WHEREVER I GO !!!

Just back from a very snowy Geneva. It was the perfect opportunity to test out my NEW 50mm f1.2 Canon prime lens’ weather sealing, completed with the customary UV filter. There will be another post which trials the lens itself (and that gorgeous bokeh!), but for now, it’s really the weather sealing that is being put through its paces!

In short, luckily it passed the test with considerable ease, and my new lens still works. The airport should take a lesson from Canon’s ability to deal with the elements! Full shots below.

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 50mm lens at various f numbers, ISO of 100, and various shutter speeds.

                                                        

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PAVILLIONAIRE !!!

There is nothing so inspirational or stylish as Bauhaus design given space to demonstrate is ruthlessly minimal functionalism. On a recent trip to Barcelona, I made straight for Mies van der Rohe’s 1929 ‘Barcelona Pavillion‘, a seminal piece of architectural wizardry that even today, seems avant-garde. In it’s time, it was beyond its time, and I find the clearcut geometry, the travertine limestone, the marbled granite panelling, and of course those epic chairs, to be truly awesome subjects for the odd snap! In the above shot, I love the luxurious contrast of the rich foliage and the white floating roof.

Best efforts below (click here for more)!

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 70-200mm lens at 70mm, f 5.0, ISO 100, 1/100 sec.

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CORPORATE COUTURE !!!

I don’t know what it is about this shot, but it just connects with me. The old-school telephone handset, the retro rolodex in the background, the lead-out line of the long, empty desk… And the girl’s look is one of uncertain confidence. I didn’t have any lighting modifiers to hand ( 😦 ), so I just used the smallest F-number I could find, defined the foreground as much as possible, and figured that some tactical vignetting and adjustment-brushing would take care of the rest! A successful snapshot of the corporate day, if I do say so myself.

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 24-105mm lens at 105mm, f 4.0, ISO 2000, 1/100 sec.

STADIUM OF LIGHT ???

Built for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the ‘Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc’ (Olympic Stadium to you and I) stands alone atop a vast hill in Catalonia. What is strange though, is its relatively confined proportions compared to the cavernous olympic stadia of London 2012 and China 2008. Not only is it significantly smaller  (56,000 capacity vs. 80,000 for the London Olympic Stadium in Stratford), it is also tragically run down. Visiting after the national elation of London 2012, the promise of an ‘Olympic Legacy’ couldn’t have seemed any hollower after seeing the desolate and eerie absence that runs through this place.

I thought this shot captured the contrast between a once-vibrant ring of colourful emotion, and a place suffering the encroaching decay of being forgotten (represented by those ominous clouds above). If I were to have had the tripod and the ultra-wide angle (or fisheye) lens with me, a better shot would have invariably come about, but this will tick the box 🙂

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 24-105mm lens at 24mm, f 22.0, ISO 100, 1/15 sec.

TESTING GOSPEL…

This afternoon, I was at one of London’s best surviving jazz clubs, the legendary ‘606 Club‘ in deepest Chelsea (yah). Its stage has been graced by some of the genre’s finest since the late ’70s, so it’s always a pleasure to get close to the action in this very intimate venue. The subject of this shot is Tracey Campbell, the lead singer of the Gospel Jazz band that was playing, and the owner of an impossibly-accurate, tremendously powerful voice, captured in front of the club’s iconic backdrop, bisected by the piano’s brass-edged lid.

Apart from a chance to get some cool artistic shots of artists being artistic, I considered this my first proper road-test of the EOS 5D mk 3’s supposedly ‘exceptional light sensitivity’. Jazz clubs are dark at the best of times, but 606 has truly awful lighting – uneven, hot, patchy and ultimately unforgiving! With the proprietor preferring ‘no flash’, it was a tough ask! BUT I think the sensor has demonstrated why there’s a £1,000 step up between the mk 2 and the mk 3. Forgetting the autofocus upgrade and the video superiority, the just-invented ‘noise-to-light-sensitivity’ ratio looks awesome. Manageable noise, good contrast performance, no sensor blips, and a great preservation of detail. Victory – I will never again fear a venue for its lighting!

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 70-200mm lens at 118mm, f 4.0, ISO 6400, 1/50 sec.

LUCK OF THE DUCK !!!

On a recent photoshoot in Regents park, I came across this lone duck having a good look around for some lunch. I love how the branches dip in and out of the surface like fingers, and how the duck almost looks hemmed in by them! Naturally framed by thin twigs and foliage etc, leaving me with nothing to do but press GO. I fired this off at maximum zoom on the 200mm telephoto, because I wanted to maximise both feathers and shallowness in depth-of-field!

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk3, 70-200mm lens at 200mm, f 4.0, ISO 1000, 1/160 sec.

CAN’T HELP BUT LOOK UP !!!

Yesterday, I went to the Natural History Museum to see dinosaurs with my nephew (yes, I’m sure a customary post of the roof will follow at some point). It was a series of vast chambers which reminded me somewhat of a  less-pompous version of Le Louvre. And then, as I took in the majestic Brontosaurus skeleton in the main auditorium, natural light cascading down on it from on high, surrounded by ornate walls paved with countless ancient artefacts, I thought of this picture I shot at the Louvre itself. There are evident similarities, whilst only the direct subject matter differs. The one niggle that slightly disappoints me here is that I couldn’t capture the final corner of the roof pattern up top (and I was tucked right up in the edge of the chamber to maximise space); if only I’d spent a little more on the 16-35mm lens rather than my 17-40mm – the extra millimetre might just have been wide enough!!!

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk2, 17-40mm lens at 17mm, f 5.6, ISO 6400, 1/400 sec.

GONE SAILING…

Some have commented that my writing style is very prose-like, so to keep them guessing, I’m going to mix it up in this post.

In this shot, I have captured a girl on a boat. There is some rope, which is coiled – badly. The floor is white. The walls are white. Her trousers are almost white. Her shoes are not.

I have now run out of things to say about this post. Photo look nice.

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D, 24-105mm lens at 24mm, f 11, ISO 400, 1/250 sec.

INNOCENT SMOOTHIE !!!

I entered this shot into a competition today not because it redefines photography as you know it, but because I just wanted to share it with someone, anyone! It’s my niece, sub 1-year-old, just staring at the great big world, incomprehensibly. In that moment, I snapped her wearing the utter puzzlement that I so often feel! She is just so confounded! Whowhatwhere ?!?!? THAT is me at 5:02 every morning :-D, and I LOVE that she gets it too!

Oh and she also looks really innocent, and adorable and blah blah etc.

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk 2, 24-105mm lens at 105mm, f 5.6, ISO 6400, 1/125 sec.

 

‘THE BIG PALACE’…

… or more properly, le Grand Palais, just off the Champs-Élysées in Paris, France. I was there  roughly 6 months ago, in uncomfortably hot conditions during the day, and surprisingly chilly extremes during the evening. As I wandered along, completely unprepared (other than happening to have a camera strapped to my back), I stumbled upon this outrageously majestic, fabulously backlit piece of Gallic masonry, with a cold frost in the air to illuminate the vapours of darkness.

It. Needed. Photographing!

I wanted to go in tight for this shot, to capture the truly imposing nature of the architecture, but that would have needed an inhumanly steady hand. With no handy tripod, there was only one option; whack up the ISO, zoom to max, shoot at f4, & hope for the best from my shutter speed! By so doing, I’d accepted that there’d be inescapable noise, especially since this was my inferior EOS 5D mk 2, which doesn’t handle the dark so well. The result is an image which excites the romantic within me for its lighting 🙂, yet disappoints the perfectionist within me for its grain 😦  The ideal here would be f20 –> ISO 100 –> tripod –> deploy. But ‘sacrifices must be made’. N.b. the two specks of white in the sky are in fact prominent stars, not sensor catastrophes, and I’m actually quite fond of them, after much deliberation!

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D mk 2, 24-105mm lens at 105mm, f 4.0, ISO 3200, 1/13 sec.

LOOK OUT (TO SEA) !!!

Exactly a year ago today, I took this shot on the paradise-like beaches of the Caribbean. On this grey, murky day in London, a monochrome edit of this shot – which in no way detracts from the drama of the nimbo-stratus clouds (as I’m informed they are) in the background – seems an appropriate tribute. I am especially fond of the way this young lady cuts through the horizontals of the waves with a strong vertical stance that is slightly swept in the same direction that the wind has swept the clouds. Or something like that…

Nice swimwear too (Vitamin A by Amahlia Stevens)

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D, 24-105mm lens at 84mm, f 11.0, ISO 400, 1/500 sec.

YOUNG GUNS…

YOUNG GUNS...

It’s cold, crisp and fresh in London, exactly 6 months to-the-day since I took this capture of my favourite (and only) nephew. The little guy was so bored waiting for mummy & his little sis to stop faffing around in the park, that he put on his best ‘Ralph Lauren’ blue-steel pose for the occasion. I let the f 4.0 lens soften the rails behind him, and the bright cars off to the side were the perfect reflector disc for a nice, diffuse light! I think this one will sell ALOT of polo shirts to 4 year olds !! 😀

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mk II, 24-105mm lens at 105mm, f 6.3, ISO 400, 1/250 sec.

THROUGH THE GLASS CEILING ???

Ceiling of Notre Dame

Taken whilst on a recent trip to Paris, on a Canon EOS 5D Mk II, 17-40mm lens at 17mm, f 5, ISO 1600, 1/10 sec.

It’s such a stunning structure, the pillars remind me of a spine, and the arched beams are like ribs holding the gothic lungs in – Notre Dame is a real living, breathing creature! Was trying to capture the humbling scale of the ceiling here, in an atmospheric manner. Got to love Paris!