Inspiration Hour!

So every now and again I like to spend an hour or so looking at new or previous photographers, artists or inspirations of mine to keep my ideas up to date and to also think of new ways I can improve my own photography. This week I have been looking at another one of my favourite all-round photographers Shaun Alexander. Shaun is a top fashion and advertising photographer who specialising in anything you can imagine, his portfolio is literally never ending! I spent a good house looking at his website, his images and his career as a whole. He really is an inspiration and his work is very unique and one of a kind! The quality of imagery is very high, and with him creating and working with numerous advertising campaigns, Cosmetic campaigns, and Editorial Campaigns. Fashion designers, high fashion magazines, advertising companies, fashion editorial, celebrities, magazine covers, his work is known famously worldwide, with the standard of photography and work always growing after every shoot of his.


If you have time please check out his amazing website! (You wont be disappointed!)

http://www.shaunalexander.net/

Laura xx

Editorial Throwback!

So I have recently been looking through my images that I shot during my first year of University. I came across a really exciting shoot that I did back with Steve, a photographer who also studies with me. During this specific shoot, we spent the whole day with the model and the MU artist. We took our cameras over to the media make-up studio in the other building and photographed the model getting ready and transforming into a beautiful mystical creature!

These things take time, so I spent atleast 3 hours chatting and photographing the model as I went, capturing stages of the transformation. It was such an amazing experience, being able to see the model being transformed, and the stages the MU artist went through to complete the look was fascinating and definitely needed someone with a lot of patience and a model who was willing to sit that long!

Here are just a few shots during the transformation stages. I love the depth of field within these images, which really allowed me to focus on the model and the makeup artist. Blurring out the background really helped me to create attention to detail in the models face and how delicate the whole process was. I also love the imperfections with some of the images, the mirror is slightly smudged and none of it was staged, which definitely makes these images stand out.

I then got onto shooting the model in the studio, Steve and I set up the studio whilst the model was having the final touches of her make-up done so we were organised and ready for when they came over. I was so excited but nervous because I wanted to capture some really striking images to do the work justice! I took a lot of images but there is one that really is in a league of its own. I love the way the light has fallen on this particular image, almost as if it is lighting up the most important parts of the image, creating and leaving shadows on the face, the ears and the dress to create depth and contrast. I absolutely love it, I think its beautiful and it was definitely worth the wait capturing an image like this one!

 

 

 

 

 

Ill be blogging again soon, thanks for reading!

Laura :) xx

 

Digital Imaging - Bokeh!

Our task over the Christmas period was to photograph the technique known as 'Bokeh'. After never hearing of this specific effect before, I spent a little while researching about it and looking at lots of different perspectives and ways of doing it. A simple way of explaining Bokeh is the technique that blurs out the lighting in the image, or when the lens completely out focuses the background. For this task, I used my Nikon Telephoto Lens (70 - 300mm). I was abit apprehensive on using this lens as I was worried I wasn't going to get the right effect with it, but after I set up what I wanted to shoot I started playing around with the shutter speed and aperture I was starting to get the right effect. I was currently in the middle of tidying up my Christmas decorations and I decided to use the tree lights for the background and some little Christmas novelties which would be in focus in the foreground.

I had a lot of fun shooting Bokeh, especially for the first time! I'm really happy with my results and will be shooting a lot more Bokeh in the future!

 

 

 

 

I also got my beautiful little cat to model for me!!

 

 

 

Hope you like my images :)

Laura xxx

Digital Imaging - Smoke Trails!

So our task for last week was to photography smoke trails. I was abit optimistic about photographing smoke trails as I have never tried to shoot smoke before, especially trials which are usually shot at close range and which are very detailed. I always thought it would be very hard to get the perfect picture. But I spent abit of time (which was only about 20 minutes due to work commitments!!)setting up a backdrop for some 'trail and error' photography smoke trails.

The setting for my images were my window sill funnily enough! I propped my laptop on my window sill as the black backdrop and used the flashlight on my phone as a 'softbox' on one side to light up the smoke, if you can picture that! Almost like a miniature studio for tiny people! It actually worked better than I expected as I wasn't expecting to get anything first time round! I got my dad to light the match and blow it out so I could focus on capturing the smoke trail in detail in which I only managed to get one good image in the short time I had! But I will be trying this technique out again after Christmas to see if I can get some more to add to my collection :) for now here is the smoke trail I shot which I am really quite pleased with!!!

 

 

 

 

Laura xx

Digital Imaging - Splash Photography

So this weeks task from one of our lecturers was to experiment with the word 'splash' and create images around 'splash' photography. Splash photography is very interesting and can create some very beautiful and striking images that you wouldn't normally see through the human eye, instead, through the camera lens, you are able capture a still life image that presents a lot of detail and technique.

I wanted to use something everyday to create a splash so I just picked up an apple from my fruit bowl, some spare black A3 paper and filled up a glass bowl full of water and off I went to my kitchen to start shooting! I did drag my mum into helping me so she could drop the apple into the bowl whilst I focused on capturing the image! It took us a few attempts to get it right but we eventually got some good shots!

I am very pleased with the outcome seeing it was my first attempt at this type of photography!! Some images are below, enjoy :)

 

 

 

I really loved experimenting with 'splash' photography and it is something I would definitely do again. If I were to do this again, I would change the object I was dropping into the water, or I would perhaps use a different glass, or a see through box so I could photograph the object falling into the water from the side of the box to get the objects splash from inside the box etc., just to do something different. I also like experimenting with angles and the different splashes you can achieve from the angles from the camera lens, so experimenting with that further is something I would like to practice.

 

Until next time :)
Laura xox

Who doesnt love a film camera?!

So during my weekly visit to my grandparents house, my grandad thought he'd surprise me by getting out his old Canon AT-1 50mm film camera! I was so excited when he opened up his old camera bag to find inside this little beauty! We sat there for an hour or so talking about the camera and what he used to shoot with it and so on! He has a big pile of old film back in the day when him and my nan went on holidays and outings! Although I am a Nikon fan rather than a Canon user, I found this camera absolutely fascinating, to the weight of it and how heavy it was to the way it almost looks like a toy camera when you hold it in your hands!

 

 

I love the old fashioned way of turning the dial to set the correct aperture and shutter speed, although it requires a lot more thought, it just shows how photographers used to work and what they had to work with back in the day before digital cameras were even invented! It was also amazing the condition the camera was in, being almost 50/60 years old, all the numbers were still perfectly bold without any that were worn away! (It must have been in the back of the cupboard for a while haha!) My gramps still had the old fashion camera flash unit to pop on top of the camera body too!

A short but sweet blog today, showing you the wonders of a vintage family film camera! I absolutely love this old film camera and I honestly cant wait to try it out!!


Love,

Laura xxx

Photographing a Hair Show

On Saturday I photographed my first ever hair show! It was such an amazing experience and one that I was preparing for for a little while now! After waking up at 6am and going to my usual job until 4pm in the afternoon, I had to rush home and get my things together and head down to the hair show. I arrived at 6 and the team were doing a final run through. So Caroline, the lady who owns the salon and who organised the whole show took me backstage where I was introduced to the hair salons regular photographer, Nick. He made me feel less nervous and we were having a laugh and a joke. He was telling me all about his 15 years spent in the photography business, with his own home studio and company, it was really inspiring listening to all the experiences he had during his photography career!

There was a lot of waiting around as the show didn't start until gone 7:30, but I was peeping out from behind the side stage curtains, out to where my mum and sister were sat, who were in the audience (they were trying to put me off!!) haha. The show began with a speech from Caroline, followed by a dance crew who were very good and started off the show perfectly! It then went into hair of different eras including 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and so on, one even dressed like the spice girls did back in the day! There was also a men's cut of the on-trend cut based on 'The Only Way is Essex'. Below are some images I took from the different decades of hair.

 

There was also another salon there which showcased their work during the second half of the show, the image above was one of my favourite images I took of 3 different hairstyles that were produced.

 

A live cut on stage: Long hair into a Bob

 

 

There was also live music during the evening which added something different to the evening, everyone in the crowd was signing along!

 

 

There was then a masquerade ball, which showcased big hair that would usually be sported back in the days when people 'went to the ball'. The hair was amazing and looked like it took hours to do! Complete with beautiful gowns and lovely make-up from a well known make-up artist it all came together brilliantly!

I took around 400 images, so it was very hard to just narrow it down to just a few, so I picked my favourite from the evening to put on my blog post today! I had an amazing time, I was there around 4 hours and it absolutely flew by I was having such a brilliant time! I am so so pleased with my images and it was such a different and amazing experience, one which I would do all over again!!

Laura xxx

A hidden gem

 For my most recent shoot, a friend and I popped over to Bowood for the morning. Being only a 2 minute drive from where we both live is very handy - you don't always have to travel far to find beautiful locations to shoot at! Once we arrived my friend got changed in the house toilets and we started making our way down to the hidden gem - the waterfall! Being a long walk and right at the bottom of the lake, I was worn out before I even started shooting! The waterfall is beautiful, set back from the rest of Bowood, to get there your have to walk over little stepping stones over the river! The sun also made an appearance every now and again which looked lovely peeking through the trees surrounding it. We started to shoot straight away, we couldn't wait to get started! I felt bad that my friend was getting wet from the water so I decided to take my boots off and get in with her.. well only up to my knees! We had a lot of fun and it was a great experience, especially walking back to the car in the rain and thunder and no umbrella! I will definitely be returning for another shoot here in the future, but for now here are some of my most favourite images taken from Wednesday :)

 

 

 

I have used Photoshop Elements 11 on all these images, increasing the contrast slightly and also bringing down the saturation level. I didn't want the colours in the images to be bright and 'in your face'. By dimming down the saturation in the image allows the colours to still be there but to be a lot more subtle, giving it a very smooth look to the image - an effect that I love! I am so proud of these images and it is definitely the best shoot I have done so far!


Laura xx