Ginger La Rouge: Model Shoot

Ginger La Rouge (Victoria) is a burlesque dancer and was after something fun but a little different from the other shots in her portfolio.
Ginger is a lovely person, very bubbly and chatty. The shoot was light hearted and really good fun and this is clearly evident in the shots.

I loved the umbrella shots, they worked really well. I was a bit concerned at first because of the lights reflecting on the plastic umbrella but it didn't really cause a problem.

For a bit more variation and fun in the shots, we tried some different angles and I thought that looking down on Ginger (above) could make the images a bit more interesting and a nice variation.

I knew from our conversations before the shoot, that Ginger really liked duo toned images. So when I processed the shots, I gave her different colour options including the duo toned.

Ginger was really pleased with the shots from the shoot and I would love to work with her again.

All of the other shots and edited variations from the shoot can be seen in the gallery on my website here; GINGER LA ROUGE

Here is Ginger's feedback and testimonial from the shoot;

"Elliye is a fantastic photographer - professional, organised, and lots of fun to work with. She gave great direction and was full of ideas. I felt very at ease with her on the shoot and I couldn't be happier with the finished results! I was also extremely impressed with the quick turnaround. I would recommend working with her to anyone!"

Model: Ginger La Rouge

Make-Up: Ginger La Rouge

Photography & PP: Me

Elena: Fashion Designer Shoot

On Friday I had 2 shoots, so as you can imagine, it was a rather busy day - I didn't even get chance to break for lunch and I was exhausted by the end.

One of the shoots was with Elena Aristotle, a Fashion Designer based in Leeds.
Elena needed some shots of her designs for her portfolio and as it was something different, I thought it would be a good opportunity.

The shoot was fairly straight forward, Elena had decided to model herself and had also arranged a make-up artist.

It sounds like she is doing pretty well with her designs as she has started to receive bulk orders from various shops and is currently designing a new range.

All of the other shots and edited variations from the shoot can be seen in the gallery on my website here; ELENA

Elena's response to the photos was "Oh my god Elliye!!! I'm so impressed, you are amazing. They look so good and the dresses look fab-exactly what I wanted... Thank you again! ...I will tell everyone about how good you are!".

Model & Clothing Designer: Elena Aristotle
Make-Up Artist: Jessie Young
Photography & PP: Me

Run out of developer? Try coffee instead!

I came accross this link in a forum on Flickr to Photojojo.com
The article explains how to develop film using coffee and vitamin C as a substitute for developer.

Quite interesting and worth a read...How To Develop Film Using Coffee & Vitamin C!

There is also a group on Flickr for images that have been developed using this and other homemade substitute techniques: Caffenol

A busy but very good week...

This week has been quite good, although very busy! I've finished the Communication Technology brief (Low Light photography), had 2 model shoots and taken another 2 wedding bookings!

I promised myself that I wouldn't do more than one wedding a month this year due to the volume of work I have from Uni, but I really enjoy it and I just can't say no...besides, I won't take a booking if I know it will cause a conflict between my workloads.

There will be lots of photos to come this year as I have over twice as many bookings than last year for Weddings alone. The majority of the weddings are referrals which is great and I think that speaks volumes about my work and client satisfaction.

Live Brief: Final Project Plans

I have been looking forward to this brief for quite some time now as it gives me the full freedom to do exactly what I want and I have a million and one ideas!

My initial plans were to hold a series of shoots inspired by Tim Walker and Tim Burton, some focusing one one influence and others on both to give more variation with styles and themes with a high fashion, fairytale and classical Gothic twist.
As with any project involving models, the shots would be used by the models themselves for their portfolios making the project 'live'.

I thought about this idea initially last year but I decided that it would be too complicated at the time and that I didn't have enough experience photographing individuals which then became my reasoning for the portraits project.

Having looked in to this idea in some depth now, I really don't think that a wide selection of shoots with these themes will be possible, mainly due to the financial implications.
I have quite thoroughly researched Tim Walkers style including props and locations which are generally very extravagant and expensive. Replicating this for a university project would be far too costly and gaining location permissions can be very difficult. There is also the issue of wardrobe. Without a wardrobe stylist or designer, I would have to source most of the clothing myself either through hire or purchase which again, is more expense that I am not in a position to fund at the moment.

With all this in mind, I may focus on fashion and model photography without set themes to be held both in the studio and on location to gain more experience, allow far more freedom and be a far more viable option. Again, it will be live as the models will be using the images for their portfolios. This will still allow me to do some of the themed shoots that I originally would like to have done and I already know models who would like these sort of images to add to their portfolios.

I will post more details on this project shortly when I have a more precise idea of what I intend to do.

Painting with Light: Sparklers

I think my neighbours were quite confused when they saw me out in the street with my camera set up on the tripod while I was waving sparklers about!

This was quite different as there was so much light from the street lamps so the length of the exposures were quite limited. To enable them to be longer, I used a very small aperture so that less light was let into the exposure. The sparklers were still picked up well as they were so bright.

Above Left: Taken at F.16 exposure 13 seconds, ISO 100
Above Right: Taken at F.8 exposure 6 seconds, ISO 100

Above Left: Taken at F.8 exposure 6 seconds, ISO 100
Above Right: Taken at F.8 exposure 6 seconds, ISO 100

After messing about for a while, I decided to try drawing round something - there isn't much in our street so I used my car.
I have seen this done before in magazines and its quite a cool effect. It was just a shame that it wasn't darker as it would have looked so much better!

Taken at F.16 exposure 25 seconds, ISO 100

Jayne (Model Shoot)

On Friday I had a shoot with Jayne, an agency signed model from Leeds.
Jayne was after some new images for her portfolio to give it a bit more variety so we came up with a few different styles that would add to both of our portfolios.

All of the other shots and edited variations from the shoot can be seen in the gallery on my website here; JAYNE

The shoot went really well and there was a good amount of variety in the final images.
Jayne was really happy with the final shots too - she used the word 'AWSOME' and said that they were just what she wanted.

Model: Jayne Robinson
Styling & Make up by Jayne & Hannah Jowett
Photography & processing by me :)

Low Light HDR

I wanted to combine the low light photography with HDR to see what effect it would have.
I have seen a fair amount of this on Flickr and it can look absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, my HDR skills aren't that advanced and I'm only running a trial version of the software at the moment so it is some what limiting.

I would have liked to have taken some skyline photographs of Leeds from a distance with a patchy sky as the effect that HDR can have is really impressive. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a suitable sky to do this so I tried it with a shot of the school at the Movarian Settlement in Pudsey.

The result was quite surprising as I didn't expect it to show such drastic changes in the images depth, detail and lighting.

I imported the image into Lightroom to try to reduce the noise and add a slight vignette. While I was doing this, I experimented with the LR presets and really liked the cyanotype effect. The cool blue colours gave the look of a moon lit street. I really like this version as it isn't as bright or garish as the original HDR image.

More Headlight Trails...

After taking the last set of headlight trails I thought I would try in a slightly different situation, the motorway.

Taken at F.16, ISO 200, exp. 20 seconds

I chose the motorway because one of the issues that I encountered previously was the street lighting. There were more overhead lamps spaced much closer together at the original location. On the motorway, the lights are spaced much further apart. This lights the location more evenly and diffuses the light more so that the lamps don't glare or create as much camera flare.

I went later in the evening to do this so it was a bit darker and positioned myself so that I wasn't too close to any of the street lamps. Although the exposure is 5 seconds longer than the previous light trail images, the general image is much brighter and evenly lit. The flares on the street lighting aren't as prominent in this image either and don't distract the viewer so much from the light trails. I also like the road markings as I feel that they add more interest to the scene and lead the viewer into the photograph.

HDR...yet again...

I was clearing out and backing up all of my old files and came across a particular image that I have been meaning to try in HDR for some time.

After trying the shots in previous posts, I was certain that this would work and it is by far, my favourite HDR that I have done.

Because the landscape pictured spans over such a distance, the HDR has really brought out the depth of the scene. At the same time, it has made the detail in the foreground more interesting because of the contrasting tones from the sky and valley.

Despite the image being quite dark, the muted reds in the valley and the lighter tones of the foreground have warmed and lightened it up, making it far more pleasing to the eye.

I also really like the gritty look that the image has, making it look far more natural and 'earthy'.

Think I have been watching waaaaaay too much X-Files...

I promised myself that this year I would be far more active with Flickr groups other than just general discussions.
The Leeds group are brilliant, so active and extremely helpful. They have weekly themes (TOTW), monthly & lunch time meets, workshops as well as a whole wealth of other goings on.

This weeks TOTW is 'Curves' and I thought that this self portrait idea would fit quite nicely.

For some reason there has been a lot of X-Files repeats on tv lately...and these shots just remind me of aliens...I think its the way that the shapes diffuse in the light...

These shots were not inspired by the X-Files (although the misty texture was) as it is something I have been meaning to do for quite a while. I tried it some time ago with lamps but the light was no where near bright enough to get a defined enough shape.

No, I'm not an alien myself...

More HDR...

After my initial experimenting with HDR for this project, I wanted to try some different shots to see how well they would work. I chose several different images to experiment with, all very different from each other in terms of content and lighting to see how it effected the HDR and Tone mapping.

All of the shots that I chose were landscapes as this is the only area that I felt I would really use HDR for. I also love the way that an overcast sky can come out using HDR and Tone Mapping.

The first shot is of the Abbey Light Railway tracks at Kirkstall.
I chose this shot because it was rich in foliage, the colours were all very similar and the location was enclosed by trees which diffused the natural light. This kept the shadows minimum and the light fairly even. The detail on the tree trunk to the left of this shot has come out really well - click on the image for a larger view.

The second shot was an open landscape of Kirkstall Abbey. I chose this one because of the cloudy sky. The image was quite bright because of the weather conditions making it quite different from the one of the railway tracks. This image demonstrates the benefit the HDR can have to a cloudy sky by increasing the depth through tones.

The third shot is an open landscape at Settle. It was very overcast, had just snowed and started to hail while I was taking the shot. This meant that it was a lot darker with more prominent shadows and a purple tint to the dark grey sky. HDR really brought this image out. It gives more attention to the marshed area in the foreground and has brought the hills out well. In the original shots, the hills looked very 'flat' because of the light levels.

The forth is Harlech Castle in North Wales. This was a very bright day - beautiful blue skies with big fluffy clouds. The castle is situated on a hill top so its very open and was much brighter than the other shots that I have used. I also thought that the brickwork of the castle itself would look quite interesting in HDR. You can see the detail better if you click on the image for a larger view.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with these shots. I especially like the increased depth that the HDR has brought to the images but I wouldn't use it on the majority of my work. I think that it makes the images look quite unnatural which is a complete contradiction to my general taste of landscape photography, I prefer the natural beauty. Although, with a very moody shot, HDR could add so much more drama so the technique and effect are still useful especially if used in moderation.