SWPP Members day

I was at the SWPP members day today, another fantastic day for information gathering and gaining inspiration from 2 of the greats.

First up, Mark Cleghorn with his "Splash of flash". He's like the duracell bunny, he just keeps going and going, divulging tips from his many years in the business and in this seminar, showing the creative use of flash. He catered for all budgets from using the expensive brand names right down to using budget LED lights, something for everybody.

The afternoon saw the arrival of Doug Gordon and his "High fashion, High glamour Weddings". This guy is highly entertaining and really makes an impression on you, probably the YMCA dance he gets the audience to join in with at the start! He is the master of flow posing and whilst at a Wedding, he will create a series of 50 different poses in 5 minutes! Today he took us through over 150, not that I can remember them all!

This evening I stayed on for a couple of the masterclasses. Jerry Ghionis, "Re-inventing the Wedding album" and Kevin Kubota, "The Kubota creative workflow system". Both speakers gave outstanding presentations, lively, informative and relevant. Back for the trade show day tomorrow.

SWPP Business School day 2

SWPP Business School day 2 and what a day it was! Day 1 was very informative, but I think day 2 was far better. There were outstanding presentations from Michael Redford (Wake up to marketing), Stewart Randall (Social Networking), John Denton (Practice for perfection) and my favourite one of the day, Mitche Graf (best of the best, top promotions from around the world).

I have taken substancial notes throughout the 2 day SWPP course, made new contacts and I now need to divulge and implement what I can, making plans for the future...

SWPP Business School day 1

I went to the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers, (SWPP), Business School today. It was the first of 2 days, aimed at giving photographers a chance to listen to various speakers, all of whom give you ideas to develop business strategies, improve business acumen and
ultimately a head start from a business perspective. It was an opportunity to listen, take copious notes and to consume the advice and guideance given. Some of the points are relevant to me now, some will be of use in a few months, others in a year and the rest will be parked for when I need them. The line up of speakers were not all familiar to me. I had heard of Catherine Connor and Xander Casey, both of whom gave a great brief, full of enthusiasm and pertinent business information, but by far the best presentation of the day was by Mark Leightley who was talking about being in search of success. I had never heard of this photographer before but, the presentation he gave was very informative, given in a lively and interesting manner,
keeping the audience enthused throughout. Now to consolidate the days notes and prepare for tomorrow!

Location portrait shoot with new camera

Having been out and tested the new camera a number of times, it was time to use it in anger. I went back to the country park and took along my trusty model. The main purpose of the shoot was to use natural light, but to get direction of light by using canopies of tress or buildings as a natural subtraction of the light over head and trying to maintain the catch lights in the eyes, to make them really look alive. It was not to capture the surrounding area and hence the reason most of them are 3/4 length at most.

The photo by the gate was achieved by having the model lit from behind and just pumping some light back into the face with a reflector to bring the eyes alive.

I do like B&W images.....

New camera

Got a new camera just before Christmas, as an additional body to my existing equipment instead of renting one when it was needed, Santa came early last year!

Got a new 70-200mm f2.8 lens to go with it, couldn't wait to get out and try it out. Went to the local country house in the ground and gave it a run out. Got to love the compression on that 70-200mm lens at f2.8.

Off camera flash

This has to be one of my favourite camera techniques that I played with last year. It's a way of turning day into night using the flash away from the camera. It completely changes the look of things.

The way it is achieved is fairly simple, with the best effects seen during the hour before sunset when you are not fighting the intensity of the natural light so much. To achieve this, it is a matter of metering by hand, or through the camera, the ambient light that surrounds the subject and then manually dialling up the power intensity of the flash to be 2 stops brighter than this measurement. Depending on the direction you are shooting, i.e into or away from the sun, you may need to meter for the sky as opposed to the ambient light around the subject, just play with it and see what achieves the picture you are looking for. When this is done and the settings for the flash exposure are transferred to the camera, the flash becomes the dominating source of light with the backgrounds becoming dark and as the sun sets, they almost become black. The flash is fired via a radio trigger, of which there are many types. The amount of ambient light can be increased or decreased by changing the shutter speed, this has to be kept within the flash sync speed of the camera, normally around 1/200th. If you want to restrict the spill of the light from the flash there are various adapters that can be applied to funnel the light to the subject.

If you are feeling adventurous you could add in a second flash. You could also try this technique using either a video light or a torch, thats another technique on the list to be tried

Then I went for a dramatic location to test it out, my Daughter was really impressed when I said we were off to the Graveyard!!

Graffiti backdrop location session

Having been out on location with Tia, I needed to find a location to do some other portraits, preferably a different and interesting backdrop. There are so many options if you open your eyes. I had an idea to use a Graffiti location but it is difficult to find one, probably as they are actually criminal damage. Looking on the net, I saw pictures of this one and managed to track it down by looking for signs in the area. Eventually saw a business sign in the background (not in these images), and looked them up in the telephone book! Had a great session, the long panoramic picture is my favourite of them all!

Location shoot with Tia

As part of the photography training, back in July I was out in a lovely park undertaking location portraiture with the gorgeous Tia. Here are a couple of the shots from the day.

My new Blog

Welcome to my new blog to compliment my updated Website, jbmphotography.co.uk. I am a Wedding and Portrait Photographer based in Poole, Dorset. I am passionate about what I do and love capturing those moments in time to be cherished for ever.

During the past year my photography has dramatically changed after being selected as an apprentice to Mark Cleghorn, a highly sought after UK Wedding and Portrait Photographer, where I appear, alongside other apprentices, as part of the Phototraining4U online training resource. I will keep you posted on an opportune basis as to the progress along the way, although we only have another 5 months left!

I will use this blog to post some photographs of projects that i am working on as well as a few i have done already. Keep an eye out for future updates....