Landscapes: Malhamdale

Although I haven't written much on here about my current uni projects, I have been up to quite a bit!

I have decided to focus on landscape photography for both the current project and my dissertation so the direction of my work has changed quite dramatically.

It has been quite some time since I last did some landscape photography and it doesn't seem to be coming as easily as it used to. I'm not sure if it is because I have spent the last 18 months focusing on portraiture and model portfolios, using more and more flash lighting and not so much natural light, not to mention that they are nearly two completely different entities with specific techniques and skills to match.

Anyway, I decided to head up to Malham for a day of shooting.

The weather had forecast clear skies at silly o'clock and cloudy with sunny spells for the rest of the day..... they lied!! I was in Malham for sunrise and as the sky began to light up, it was cloudy. Very, very cloudy. Grrr! So that spoilt that plan and none of the sunrise images came out anywhere near how I would have liked them to.

I stayed in Malham for most of the day, and still it remained overcast and cloudy.

After the sunrise location, I headed up to Gordale Scar and Janet's Foss (which was just a trickle compared to my last visit up there). By this time it was about 8am and the campers were still hiding away in their tents (not that I blame them)! So while it was quiet, I made a little time to Geocache :) but..... (I was having a very bad day), I didn't have enough signal for my GPS to work! I remembered the location clues and managed to find the cache anyway but I couldn't hunt down the others as the GPS just wasn't playing ball.

After this, I went for a bit of a wander and headed up to the top of Malham Cove along the limestone pavement. It seemed so surreal, all the lime stone running over the fields like a river up to the cove with such an immense drop.

The views were beautiful, it was just a shame about the weather. It would have been perfect had there been a nice sky with huge clouds casting shadows across the landscape.

Fingers crossed for Northumberland!

Jeni's 21st

I recently provided the photography for Jeni's 21st birthday.

I had not covered a birthday before so I was a little unsure of what to expect.

It was a family party so there were people of all ages and the little girl in pink provided no end of entertainment to everyone!

Jeni and her friends headed off for a bit of a drinking session after, to no one's surprise!

The family are all very happy with the photographs too :)

The Sunshine Underground

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours on the set if the new music video for Leeds band, The Sunshine Underground so of course, I didn't say no :)

Because of the short notice of the shoot, I didn't have the chance to work on the whole video which was a shame. I did manage to get a few shots though and I will post more info on this when the video is finished.

There are a few more images from this on my Flickr page.

Anastasia & Tony's Wedding

A few days ago, I photographed Tony & Anastasia's wedding in York.

The happy couple live in London so I didn't have to opportunity to meet them before their wedding day, but the groom is from Yorkshire, hence the choice of location for their wedding and Anastasia is from Russia.

The morning of the wedding, I was starting to get a little worried as the weather really wasn't playing ball. Gale force winds and rain was forecast!

I left Leeds with plenty of time to spare, expecting the A64 to be closed or to be stuck in traffic.

As it was, the A64 was actually quite empty but York was packed. It took me about an hour to get to the registry office!

Fortunately, it didn't rain. The sky's remained grey and the wind wasn't too bad in the city centre so we managed to get the shots that the couple wanted outdoors and they were up for a bit of fun too.

Geocaching

Totally unrelated to either work or Uni, but I have started Geocaching.

I figured I might as well and if I'm going to be doing a lot of walking for my photography, I could do this at the same time and it sounded like good fun.

For those who don't know what Geocaching is, it is basically a game of hiding and seeking hidden treasure (no, not expensive treasure...more like trinkets)... oh, and hiking.

You need to sign up to the GeoCaching website to get the longitude and latitude co-ordinates of the caches (so you need a GPS, there is also an iPhone app).

There are several hundred caches in the Leeds area and thousands more beyond.

Here is a trailer from 'Splinterheads', describing a little more about what Geocaching is, although its a little more extreme that the caches that I know about.

Oh, and I found my first Geocache today - yey!

Photographer of the Year Competition 2009

I almost forgot... this year, I managed to pluck up the courage to enter the Digital Camera Photographer of the Year Competition.

Now, I am under no illusion what so ever that I will win, but I didn't see the harm in entering and thought it would do me some good, not only for confidence but to get my work seen as well.

I entered a total of 6 images under 6 different categories and you can see them on the website here; Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2009

The categories I have entered are; Planet Earth, Fashion, Destination Everywhere, Landscapes, People & Portraits and Black & White).

I have just had a look and I actually have votes on a couple of them! Yey!

If you can spare the time, please have a look and vote if you like my images - it would be most appreciated!

Thank you!

Charlotte - Shoot No.2

I have been talking to Charlotte quite a bit since my shoot with both her and Stefanie. She really enjoyed the shoot and would quite like to do some more modeling (I'm so glad she enjoyed her first experience despite location and weather issues)!

Anyway, in order to get more shoots, its helpful to have a portfolio with a bit of variety and some clear head shots so we decided to do another shoot, mainly studio based.

It was very clear on the shoot that her confidence had increased dramatically. She was a lot more confident in front of the camera, which really showed in her images.

We used a make-shift studio to start with a few different changes to add variety. This was also quite interesting as we had not discussed clothing in great detail and the majority was white!

I was so worried that she would blend into the white background and I didn't want to have to use massive shadows to bring her out.

As it went, it wasn't really a problem at all! I made sure that the background was well lit and gave the impression that there was more distance between Charlotte and the backdrop.

We even had time for a few shots outside, in a more urban setting than I would usually use but it worked well and offered more variety for Charlotte's portfolio.

Full gallery link & feedback coming soon!

Back to Uni - Final Year!!!

I'm just over a week into my third year of uni now and I'm feeling a little bit lost already this year. Obviously, I will still carry on with photography, but its just which area to focus on.

I really want to go back to landscapes and wildlife but at the same time, I really enjoy the conceptual shoots with models. Its really nice to work with different people on a regular basis. I believe that it is very beneficial in order to improve further and I really enjoy it.

However, as with during the first 2 years of the course, I greatly miss the countryside and I just haven't been able to settle comfortably in the city so this would provide more chance to get out on a regular basis.

I will definitely cover landscape and wildlife photography for at least one of my projects, but I'm just not sure about the other. There are benefits no matter which area I focus. I feel that I should follow landscapes and focus specifically there for the whole year to get the most from it, but then I wonder how much time I will have to continue with the fashion side in my spare time...

...I guess I'm going to have to go and buy myself some nice ND's!