Girls on Film

(Well more like Girl on Digital, but that doesn't work so well)

One week after the shoot with Lucia (see "Spanish Eyes" below), I had another shoot lined up with Julie, a local model. I warned Julie that I was expecting bad news at some point during the afternoon, and sure enough around fifteen minutes after picking her up, I got a call from work saying that the station was closing pretty much immediately. (Two weeks later it's still unreal)



Julie had seen some of the shots of Lucia I'd taken at Netley Abbey, and I was keen to revisit the location with her to try some other ideas, and perfect some I'd not got quite right previously. Julie hadn't worked there before but had a good idea of what to expect. She also had with her a bag with more clothes in it than I even own.




Julie was a fantastic model to work with, even supplying me with fizzy cola bottles. What a treat! Full of great ideas, it was Julie's idea to take some photos that highlighted the feathers on her top. Typically it was only when I came to look at these pictures this last week that I noticed the rogue feather.



All things considered it was a surreal afternoon for me. Together we worked through the heat and the confusion (in my case) to come up with some excellent ideas, and some shots that I think do Julie justice. There's plenty more options to be had at Netley Abbey, and hopefully more shoots with Julie (and others). I went through such a long editing and selection process from the several hundred images from this shoot, that this morning (before meeting Julie to show her the fruits of her labour)I wasn't really happy with any of them. Right now I'm feeling pretty proud of them and looking forward to my next shoot.

Spanish Eyes

The shoot with Lucia took place just two weeks ago. A two week period that feels more like a lifetime than two weeks. I won't bore you with the details suffice to say that it's been a fortnight of mixed emotions.



It was a day of mixed weather, couldn't seem to make up it's mind if it wanted to be sunny or to threaten a downpour or two. We'd started at the apartment that Lucia was soon to vacate - her living room already totally empty. The only problem there was the ceiling - at about 6foot3 heigh it was impossible for me to stand up straight in it, being 6foot6! Managed a few shots before we moved on. Netley Abbey was our destination.



The great thing about Netley Abbey (and I'd go so far as to say any outdoor location) is the options it gives the photographer looking for different backgrounds.
In fact my next blog will feature another 2 or 3 shots taken here with a different model. As couples, kids, and dog walkers roam around the ruins, Lucia and I view them almost as interlopers in our studio. Goodness only knows what they make of us!



Working with Lucia was great, and we found several ideas/themes/backgrounds that worked really well, and we were both really pleased with. You'll see Netley Abbey again in my next blog, but a new model and different views.




www.robincaddy.co.uk

RJC

The Race

The British Touring Car Championship came to Thruxton racetrack in Hampshire on the last weekend in April, with 3 rounds of racing on the Sunday. Before the racing got underway a pit lane walkabout was the order of the day, with all of the drivers signing autographs. Knowing about as much about Touring Cars as most people do, I was glad to spot a few faces I knew. Jason Plato has long been a favourite of mine and this was his first appearance of the season.



Despite having announced their forthcoming withdrawal from the BTCC, VX Racing proved firm favourites with many people, and in the first round of racing secured 1-2-3 on the podium, with reigning champion Fabrizio Giovanardi leading team mates Matt Neal and Andrew Jordan home in style.



Crowds at Thruxton seem to be pretty fluid but we found our spot in good time, and had a great base from which to enjoy the racing. Spectators are not allowed access to approximately 60% of the circuit, so naturally the crowds gather at certain points. The Complex (comprising the corners Campbell Cobb and Seagrave) was our viewpoint, and provided plenty of action as the drivers slow from around 125mph to around 55mph to negotiate the circuit. Above we see Fabrizio Giovanardi negotiating The Complex in the lead and in style. Below, a common occurrence during the day - this time its Martyn Bell pushing things to the limit.





Moving slightly further through The Complex gave an alternate angle as the cars scream around the track. Quite often the shorter wheelbase cars clipped a curb here and went onto two wheels. Tom Chilton was a particular expert at that.



The power and sounds of these cars and the skill of the drivers has to be seen to be believed, and BTCC at Thruxton is an amazing day out for anyone interested in Motorsport. Having never taken pictures of motorsport of any type before I was delighted to get some decent images. I hope you can see in the pictures something of the story of the day.

See more of my work at www.robincaddy.co.uk

Country House

The Solent Strobist group on Flickr had a group shoot at the end of March. 16 photographers, 8 models and more lighting gear than you'd find anywhere else on earth! It was my first ever group shoot, and to be honest I was unsure what to expect.



Despite being plagued with technical problems for most of the day I got a few shots I was happy with, and they are presented here. The shot of Sadaf at the top of this blog was a test shot while I was setting up the lights and Sadaf was shivering in someone else's fleece. Typically it turned out to be one of my favourites of the day!
The shot of Hannah above shows how half of my lighting was meant to look. Unfortunately I couldn't get the other flash gun to co-operate at all! The flash which has fired was to Hannah's right and behind her, hence the lack of light on her left hand side. Thinking about it now, another pair of hands with a reflector could have sorted that problem.



This shot of Eloise is with the same one light set up but I've turned the model more towards the side the light is coming from which has resulted in much reduced shadows, making it a much more pleasing look.

Back outside and I thought Sadaf deserved a little rest from all her hard work modelling. I asked her to lay down on this stone seat, and used a 1/2 CTO gel to throw in a little warmer light to the scene. I'm really pleased with how this one turned out, and its a different approach to posing the subject that no-one else tried that day. If you're thinking of heading out with a bunch of people for a group shoot, then all I can say is do it! I had a lot of "down time" that day, but still ended up with a handful of decent shots and I learnt a lot from the other people there too.

Trading Air

Southampton has a long and proud association with the sea. Known around the world as the home of the finest cruise ships and ocean-going liners, the Port of Southampton is also one of Europe's largest commercial ports. A familiar site to locals, a great many ships come and go with their cargo in containers. These containers are stored in yards within the Docks; some empty, others with their cargo still inside. Each container is nine and a half feet high and forty feet long, and it is common to see them stacked as many as six high, in long impressive rows.



When confronted with such a mass of containers the mind starts racing to come up with some way of translating such obvious potential into pleasing pictures. The containers are lined up almost like terraced houses in some northern street, often with dark forbidding alleyways between the rows. Trying to find a composition that showed this aspect of the yard is something that escaped me, and is still rattling around my head looking for a solution. (Height may be the answer, stacked nearly 60 feet high a ground-level shooting position may be the cause of this problem)



Eventually I decided to concentrate on shapes, patterns and colours, to try and reduce the enormity of the scale of the yard to something more easily digested. Some close-up views accentuated the sameness to the view, others highlighted the subtle differences from container to container. The detail shots here represent some of the ideas I felt worked best. Another trip to the Docks might give me further room to explore the best ways to present this subject. As the light levels dropped, and after my excellent photographer friend Steve had finished an especially enjoyable shoot of his car within the Docks, I asked him to adopt the position, and trained an SB28 on him and an SB28 on the containers some 20 metres away (both triggered by Steve's Pocket Wizards, the backlight had full CTO gel, the light on Steve had 1/2 CTO gel). Steve specifically wanted the logo in the background to be prominent, which works well. There's also a lot of potential to de-focus the background here and use the suggestion of shapes, textures and colours in a more subtle way. Expect to see more shots from this opportunity-filled environment.

In Bloom

Spring is a time of new-birth and returning colour to the land around us. The symbolism of new beginnings can often give new inspiration for approaches and techniques. Before the daffodils and tulips of March come the crocuses of February.

I headed out on an epic photographic journey to my back garden. Quite a trek as you can imagine. A small clutch of crocuses were in an area of shade on a bright day, and I decided to make some close ups of them. I used two different lenses (a 100mm macro lens and a 50mm) with and without extensions tubes. The first picture is a useful way of setting the scene.

The way that extension tubes work is both their joy and their sorrow. In my case they have no electrical link to the camera body thus I had no control over aperture selection. You do end up working very close in to your subject, mere centimeters away. This closeness and magnification allows us to see details we wouldn't usually be able to see with the naked eye, but also means that the area of the subject that stays in focus is tiny. In the example below literally millimeters.

Focusing can be a hit and miss affair but to see something so exquisitely beautiful so close up opens up a new world. I deliberately left the composition to reveal to us what the subject was. It is clearly a plant, and a view we have seen before, but not often in such proximity.

I think it works on many levels, and a more abstract approach coupled with such limited depth of field would have presented too much of a mystery. Whereas I hope this picture reveals a little more of the splendour of the humble crocus.

You and The Mona Lisa

A photo is simply about light. Good light, bad light, bright light, low light, natural light, artificial light. Light. So if you understand light, you can make a picture. Of anything - a field, the sea, a building, a person. So why in the past have I always found pictures of people so difficult compared to landscapes for example? I'd like to think I'm a "people person" and can handle a camera but I'm usually happier and get better results if a picture I take doesn't have anyone in it!

1 model, 2 days and 331 shots gave me (and Naomi the model) a chance to work out what worked and what didn't. And why. The pictures you see here were from the second day of the shoot, and the result of more than a little input from Naomi (a good photographer herself with a very natural "eye"/ability to see a picture). I'd been very keen to try a particular way of lighting that I'd learned. You can see the result of this technique clearly in the picture above and below, but I think it was actually employed in all four of these shots.


I'd only ever walked across this bridge once before in my life but had made a mental note that one day (or perhaps on many days, though I haven't revisited it yet) it would make for an interesting place to shoot some portraits. The graffiti all along the bridge is so varied, and I may post a couple of extra pictures to this blog at some point to show what some of the other panels looked like. To be honest they are pretty much works of art in themselves. In some ways that is why I feel some of these pictures work really well in monochrome, the backgrounds can prove too distracting!


It's worth comparing this last shot with the one at the top of this blog. What a different feel and style to them, and I think only partly due to one being colour and the other monochrome. I used other lighting techniques over the two days which produced some quite different effects, but its these 4 (and a few others like them) which seem to hold my attention the most. I'm currently working on some more portrait ideas (and indeed have been doing some portraits for Radio Hampshire which have been different again), and will aim to post some of these here in the near future. I'm also still dying to try out my Lomo Fisheye2. If you have no idea what that is, all I can say is wait for a sunny day and keep your fingers crossed that I venture out with mine : )

RJC