Manor House Wildlife Park

After a busy day shooting a wonderful wedding at Manorbier Castle, it was a lazy Sunday exploring the local area. Manor House Wildlife Park was a bit of a surprise really, cheap to get in, the animals seemed really well cared for and you could feed the Wallaby's and walk amongst the Lemurs. A really relaxing day and a beautiful part of Wales.

http://www.manorhousewildlifepark.co.uk/

A shot to remember my workspace

Shot of me at my desk at Newcastle College during my Foundation Degree. Having wall space and the ability to surround myself with my work has been an integral part of my development and has really given me an appreciation of actually printing photography, giving it the chance to live as an image on a wall space. So much photography never makes it from a file into print these days, and for me, filling these walls, changing them over and having those photographs to think about and discuss with piers has improved my eye and my understanding of the photographic medium.

Until it's in print, it's just not a photograph.

photograph by Adam Gruning

Signature Hair shoot #3

More shots to come but initial results are very satisfying indeed. The shoot was to me, the model of how such a shoot should go. We had the whole day in the studio and models were ready one at a time, allowing us to take our time, let the models relax and start to enjoy the experience. In the past we have had up to 16 people in there, crowding around making inexperienced models feel much more self conscious and putting the wrong sort of pressure on everyone. This shoot was controlled, we largely had no more than 6-8 people present and all of those people were relevant and important to the shoot. All of this made a huge difference to how people felt about the day and that then came through in the work. Not to say that it lacked pressure, a shoot like this is very heavy on pressure, constantly keeping everyone's energy levels up, giving repeated reinforcement to the models, getting everything done, dealing with problems and many more factors. The pressure is tangible, but it is the right sort of pressure, the exciting sort that comes from being on-stage and responsible for what is happening, the sort of pressure that you have no choice but to overcome, and in the end I am left buzzing, excited, thrilled, a little out of control in my head with how it all went and how pleased both myself and the client are with the results.
At the end of the shoot, we did an additional shoot with the last model and her partner who are in a local R'n'B band, shots from which will follow. A big congratulations to all involved, all three models did us and the client proud, the staff from Signature Salon, Hartshill, were wonderful to work with, created stunning hair for me to photograph and we all worked like a well oiled machine, but a smiling and happy machine. Thanks to Amy and Lorna for sorting the studio out for this shoot and the Signature guys. Getting out into either the countryside or a derelict urban location would add to our range of options and I have had discussions with Signature towards this.
These images have been through Lightroom only for a quick balance, they will only go through Photoshop for a full edit when the final shots have been chosen for competition.

Product Shoot for Optimise Automotive

These are some of the shots taken in the studio (28/04/11) for Optimise Automotive who wish to replace the photography on their website and update their imagery to a more professional level. The backgrounds are yet to be fully matched up, white-wise, but that will be completed when the last shoot is done and the whole range can be tweaked to match perfectly. I am happy with the results as they stand though, having never photographed product before, though a lot of online and practical research was done in the week leading up to this job.

You can see the background difference between the shots above and below, this is easy to correct in post processing. Some product was shot on the table-curve and some at floor level with different light sets which has created the difference. Small objects are best shot on the table at the three quarter point. 

It made a great difference to have the client involved in the shoot so that he could decide exactly what level of shadowing (or none) that he wanted for the photographs. On the shots below it was important to set the camera on a sturdy studio tripod, fixed in position. The first piece was placed and framed in the camera to be cropped square in post processing, then the focus was set and left alone. Tiny pen marks on the floor gave us the fixed angle that the images needed. Lights were set and the production line started as there were many of these pieces to shoot.

Cabin Fever

Having been confined to my office for days on end, and now with a beating sun outside, I had to get out of the house, just for a couple of hours. We visited the in-laws and I took my camera with me as I am entering the RHS Photographer of the Year 2011 and need to practice floral and garden photography as I have no experience in this area. There was little to shoot as many plants are yet to flower but I did what I could. As usual, I have taken them through some RAW editing but they have not been near photoshop as yet. I have resisted the urge to de-saturate the colour images, but I really prefer the sort of odd, slightly violent colours as they are with the high contrast.
Comments welcome....

   

Bathroom Photography for Logger-Rads flyers, brochures and website

Paul Brayford, plumber and bathroom fitter (who did our kitchen last year) contacted me to do shots of bathrooms for his business. He had gone to a graphic design company who had simply stolen shots from the internet, which were illegal to use and very poor quality. I shot 3 bathrooms in all and the client was very happy with the results, which are now in print.

Claudia Alice Robinson

A full studio shoot for Claudia and several other babies 'waiting for my university hand-in to pass' will take place over summer, but in the meantime I got a few shots with just natural light and bounced speedlight when Claudia visited. Some of these are quite nice and it was very worth doing as any photo shoot sparks ideas for the next time as well as improving my photography in terms of practical application.

'thirtysixweeks' for Jo and Georg

On location at the clients home, this was my first attempt at shooting prenatal work, in fact my first attempt at visiting a clients home for a shoot and taking the lighting with me. In the end I only used the speedlight, but off-camera to bounce around the light I needed as the space would not have suited getting the full lighting kit out.
Since this was done, a beautiful baby boy has come forth and the bump is on the retreat. Congratulations to the happy trio.

Keele Three Counties Results

Many thanks to everybody who visited my blog in February and voted on which photographs you would like to see me enter into the Keele Three Counties Open Photography Competition 2011.

I entered 2 of my own choices, plus the photograph which received the most votes on this blog, and guess what, I got a photograph into the exhibition and it was the one that the public had chosen. The popular vote was the right choice for Keele and thanks to you all for your contribution.

 

Gallery visit to The Public, West Bromwich

Many thanks to the staff at Wolverhapton University for organising a trip to 'The Public' and letting me, not one of their students, tag along. Thanks also to the staff of The Public for taking the time to show us around on the day before the exhibitions opened.

I mainly went in order to see the Martin Parr photography exhibition, but there was much more to see besides that. The real fascination was the building itself and the manner in which they have tried to integrate the Public with the rest of West Brom and its artistic community, but with a view towards all people of the area. Many different pieces are scattered, but cleverly, around the interior, giving the whole building a sense of adventure, exploration and discovery. The video below is made up of photographs I took of the overhead monitors which I then rendered into a time lapse video. They are therefore the sole copyright of the artist.

If you get the chance, please visit The Public in West Brom and support this modern approach to accessibility in the arts and cultural media. The whole massive building is pink, my pet hate, but I got over it, so can you.....

http://www.thepublic.com/

British Hairdresser of the Year Awards 2011 - Photography for Signature Salon

The second shoot for Signature Salon went really well with the results certainly eclipsing anything I had done previously in the studio. It was an 8 hour day, with many days of processing to follow but the feedback from the client made it all worthwhile.

Keele Three Counties Entries

These are my three entries for this years Keele Open Photography competition. Unfortunately, the bottom 2 were substitutes, one for a picture which was over-cropped by the framers, which is my fault really as I should have asked or got it printed with more bleed space, and the other was a silhouette which printed just a fraction too dark. Luckily, I know these things happen and so had 6 pictures printed and framed to give me options.

A great many thanks to all the people who studied my options for Keele and gave me great feedback which helped in choosing these images. I am not overly confident about my chances this year but fingers crossed anyway