Baby and Toddler Shoot to come - Register Interest Now

I am organizing a weekend long baby and toddler shoot. Many families have asked me to do this and I will set it up for a Saturday and Sunday with September 3rd and 4th looking like the best choice at the moment. Please email me or contact me in any way to register or confirm your interest.

Please get in touch so I can make this happen as soon as possible :)

An hour in Tenby

"Moving from Wales to Italy was like moving to a completely different country"
                                                                                                                       (Ian Rush, Footballer)

Just a few quick snaps taken in Tenby. A beautiful Welsh coastal town, even in the typical coastal gloom.

Work for 'Pen People' Magazine

I was commissioned to visit the Borough Museum & Art Gallery (The Brampton to those of us who know the area) to get some detailed shots of the piece of ancient calligraphy shown below. The client had previously visited and taken the shots he wanted for the Pen People magazine, but was not happy with the quality. Therefore, I literally had a rough copy of the article and was tasked with simply retaking the exact same shots, but at a professional level.

The majority of the time was devoted to using angles, a giant blackout sheet and a shutter release in order to remove reflection after reflection from the pictures. The frame was not level, a cabinet stopped me getting perfectly central, there was mixed lighting, a flash ban, and the paper was not flat, so it was a challenge to make the most of it.

As we were leaving, we were pulled back indoors in order to help the museum staff who were dealing with a sudden and severe water leak. We rolled up our sleeves and helped them to empty the upstairs museum rooms, where old artifacts in mock shops were getting drenched. We found out the day after that a child's ball had blocked the exterior drainage causing a massive backlog and an immense amount of damage.

These shots are yet to be edited for the publication as the client will be selecting from the shots and will want close ups of key areas.

Pen People is an enthusiasts publication for calligraphers of all levels. For more information check the link below.

http://www.penpeople.org.uk/

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.