Dave and Roy's Retirement BBQ

A huge chapter closes for the team as they gathered to bid farewell to Roy and Dave, as both of them enter full time retirement! Team members, both past and present, gathered with their families for this occasion. The weather was superb, the company excellent and the food survived Gary's cooking! A very pleasant evening was had by all!

Monica photo shoot

Yesterday I took a trip to Barry Island to do a photo shoot with my fellow PhotoTraining4U apprentice Ozzy as part of our continued training to deliver images for the next critique. Ozzy has been working with Monica to provide her a portfolio whilst developing his own photographic skills. We had a great day, although a long one for me with a round trip to Barry Island. Thankfully the weather held out for us and we did make it to my favourite location round that area, Fontygary!

Tia Location photo shoot

Last weekend I photographed Tia out on location at Knowlton Church. This is a great location with a lot of character to use. The plan was to do a Gothic look and a Ball Gown style set up. Tia brought an Army look, instead of the Gothic style, which worked well and at the end mixed the 2 outfits together, wearing the big Army boots with the Ball Gown. It was a nice afternoon and despite the place being filled with visitors, we got the shoot done!

Kevin and Beverley

The Wedding of Kevin and Beverley took place on Saturday 1st May 2010 at St Mary The Virgin Church, Lytchett Matravers. The weather did threaten to down pour, but we managed to achieve the majority of the photos in the Dry. The reception was held at the Langton Arms, Tarrant Monkton. Here is a taster of the photographs taken.

Oscar

This evening I had the pleasure of photographing a new born baby. Little Oscar came into the world just over 7 days ago. Kal and Spence, the proud parents, are elated with the new member to the family. Oscar behaved impeccably, only 2 minor incidents and one near miss!

Jem

I was back up to Cardiff at the beginning of the month for the next instalment as one of the PhotoTraining4U apprentices. We went out for another Wow shoot, this time with our lovely model Jem. Despite not knowing about myself and Ozzy being the apprentices and what that entailed, she was brilliant and very patient during the times Mark was explaining to us what he was after. It was another great session, where once again we learnt a lot from Mark. The location was down at Fontygary Bay, which is just a stunning place to photograph at, hopefully you will see this reflected in my images!

Location Shoot with Chris

Had a great afternoon yesterday working with Chris, doing a location shoot down at Poole Quay, Chris was great to work with and we got some awesome images! As you can see it was a mixture of natural light and off camera flash, to give a variety of styles to the session. I needed to get more male pictures in my portfolio, to show the length and breadth of my photography skills, thankfully this shoot helped that cause of nicely! The sun came out for a while and we managed to make the best of it, I just couldn't afford the boats in the background!

Richard and Michaela's Wedding

I attended Richard and Michaela's wedding on the 13th March 2010, at the MacDonald Botley Park Hotel. The weather was kind to us and with a large number of guests, it was a very special day for them, of which I was pleased to be part of it. As you can see in the video below, it was a very formal occasion, with all service personnel wearing uniform, of particular note was the Guard of Honour who performed admirably, thankfully this was before the drinks started to flow!

Make Over Shoot

I was approached a few weeks ago by a Make Up Artist (MUA), to see if I would do a TFCD photo shoot of some models, after she had done their make up. The MUA was looking to get examples of her work for Bridal make up and to capture the subtle changes that Brides would wish for on their Wedding Day. I was more than willing to do this as I use every training opportunity I can get.

On the day, although 4 models were planned, only 1 turned up Tia, she was great to work with. My daughter agreed to step in and have her's done as well, to give a bit of variety, well a second model anyway. What I was not prepared for was the length of time it takes to do the make up professionally. The MUA arrived with a suitcase of equipment, which included a small make up compressor and associated attachments, to spray on, very finely, several different levels of make up, whilst ensuring it doesn't look plastic once complete, then the eye make up. She then moved onto the hair, a total process time of well over an hour each.

Here are the before and after pictures, both the models and the MUA were pleased with the results. I was happy with that, as it was the first Commercial type shoot I had done!

Focus 2010

Had a busy week this week helping out on the PhotoTraining4U stand at Focus on Imaging 2010, held at the NEC. I was there to assist Mark and Debbie Cleghorn and their team, to promote the PhotoTraining4U brand.

I asked Mark if I could attend with the team for the duration of Focus to help others understand the benefits they could receive from being part of this fantastic resource. I felt that as it is a product I truly believe in, I would be able to give prospective members a true insight into what it is and how I use it, i.e. give the view from a current user.

I also offered Mark the possibility for me to actually present on his stand, conscious that if I messed it up, it was his business I was messing with. Mark and Debbie were more than grateful for me to do this and as such, gave me 2 presentation slots each day. The talks I gave were, one on the PhotoTraining4U site, who am I, how i got into PhotoTraining4U and what the site is all about, including how I use the resource to improve my photography. The second talk was about my time as the PhotoTraining4U Apprentice and how I have evolved since being part of this stupendous opportunity to progress my photographic skills!

The days were long but extremely rewarding, I lost count of the number of people who came up to me and spoke highly of what we, the Apprentices , have achieved with Marks guidance over the last 8 months, many of whom spoke to me and Ozzy as if they know us, as they have watched us within the site so many times. It was a real confidence boost to know that people are learning so much from seeing myself and Ozzy develop, that they are developing with us!

It was also a great opportunity to get to know the PhotoTraining4U team socially outside of the show times, many a great, if not sometimes strange, conversation had, along with a couple of lemonades of course, not to mention the Chinese all you can eat buffet, twice!

See below a couple of images of the stand, we were I believe one of the busiest stands!

The stand ready for the day.

View from a different angle, the PCs gave a live view of the site.

The happy team.

Me in full swing during one of my presentations.